Glacier- and permafrost-related hazards such as glacier floods, ice and rock avalanches, mass movements, or ice-clad volcanoes represent a continuous threat to human lives and infrastructure in high mountain regions. Disasters associated to the glacial and periglacial environment can cause thousands of casualties and damages in the order of many millions of Euro in one event. Glacier and permafrost hazards are particularly sensitive to climate changes. The present shift of cryospheric hazard zones due to atmospheric warming, chain reactions, and the potential far reach of glacier disasters make it necessary to apply modern remote sensing techniques for the assessment of such hazards, combined with field investigations and numerical modelling work. High mountain regions are particularly affected by climate change impacts on hazard potentials.
Project Goals:
- The goal of this collaborative project is to bring together a highly complementary group of experts in order to improve the technology for remote-sensing based detection and monitoring of glacier and permafrost hazards,
- to develop regional-scale models of hazard potentials in the study regions for initiating or supporting prevention and mitigation strategies, and
- to intercompare the results from the Caucasus, mountain ranges in Norway and Canada towards a more general methodology of space-borne assessment of glacier and permafrost hazards.
This project is closely linked to and complements the NATO SfP project 982143 (Prediction of glacial hazards and disasters in the Central Caucasus, Russia).