7-Climate change and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) — A Review

Abstract

The global climatic change during the first half of the twentieth century has brought a tremendous impact on the high mountainous glacial environment. Many of the big glaciers melted rapidly and gave birth to the origin of a large number of glacier lakes. Due to the faster rate of ice and snow melting, possibly caused by the global warming, the accumulation of water in these lakes has been increasing rapidly and resulting sudden discharge of large volumes of water and debris and causing flooding in the downstream. Glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) causes disasters to life and property along the downstream, results serious death tolls and destruction of valuable forests, farms and costly mountain infrastructure. In this paper a brief review of GLOF and its associated hazards have been discussed in detail.