the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
A global database of historic glacier lake outburst floods
Natalie Lützow
Georg Veh
Oliver Korup
Abstract. Ongoing atmospheric warming has accelerated glacier mass loss in many mountain regions worldwide. Glacier lakes trap parts of the glacial meltwater and increased by about 50 % in number and area since the 1990s. Some of these glacier lakes may empty catastrophically and pose hazards to mountain communities, infrastructure, and habitats. Such glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) have caused millions of dollars of damages and fatalities, and are one of many concerns about future changes in the magnitude, frequency, and impacts of a shrinking mountain cryosphere. Consistently compiled inventories are thus vital to assess regional and local trends in GLOF occurrence, hazard, and risk. To this end, we studied 769 literature and internet sources, and developed a standardised database with 57 parameters that describe and quantify the location, dam type, size, timing, and impacts of GLOFs in nine glaciated mountain regions. Our GLOF inventory also includes details about the lake area before and after the outburst for 391 cases that we manually mapped from optical satellite images since 1984. In total, we compiled 3,151 reported GLOFs that occurred in 27 countries between 850 and 2022 C.E. Most GLOFs have been reported in NW North America (26 %) and Iceland (19 %). However, the reporting density in our inventory varies. During the 20th century alone, the number of yearly documented GLOFs increased 6-fold. Less than one-quarter of all reported cases feature hydrodynamic characteristics such as flood peak discharge or volume, or estimates of loss and damage. Our inventory more than doubles the number of reported GLOFs in a previous global inventory, though gaps in attributes remain. Our data collection process emphasizes the support of local experts in contributing previously undocumented cases, and we recommend applying systematic protocols when reporting new cases. The global database on historic GLOFs is archived at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7330345 and regularly updated at http://glofs.geoecology.uni-potsdam.de/.
Natalie Lützow et al.
Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on essd-2022-449', Adam Emmer, 24 Feb 2023
It is always a pleasure to review a well-written manuscript presenting interesting data such as this one. The authors compiled unprecedently detailed inventory of GLOFs that happened on Earth in past ca 1300 years. This dataset has potential to be cited in studies dealing with GLOF occurrence patterns in space and time and GLOF hazard and risk assessment studies, and I find it generally suitable for ESSD. I have two general and few specific comments (below) to this manuscript:
- While this is a data science paper and the authors declare that “the goal is to present a global dataset that covers consistently and systematically the largest number of reported GLOFs” (L58-59), only limited methodological details are actually revealed in Section 2.1. I wonder what was the workflow of systematic search for GLOFs (i) in peer-reviewed literature; and especially (ii) in non-peer reviewed literature, news and social media. I acknowledge that it is nearly impossible to go through all diverse sources but I feel that the authors should make it clear what types of sources (news outlets, social media, repositories of local authorities, DRR reports, …) they went through and how. What about non-English sources? I find this especially important because it will allow future researchers easily identify and address possible gaps and avoid work redundancy. So please provide more details on your GLOF search methodology and its consistency and systematic aspects.
- The authors refer to different versions of their database. One (let’s call it ‘static’ database) is published at Zenodo (allright), while the other (‘active’) is found at Uni Potsdam website. I’m convinced that future development of the active one is especially important and interesting, because new GLOFs will happen / unreported ones will be discovered. Yet, it is not clear how newly discovered or recently occurred GLOFs can be added (?), following the statement of “joint contribution within the research community”. This goes hand in hand with what you mentioned on L316-317, i.e. “local experts are important for identifying and validating individual GLOFs.”. Absolutely, yes (and this is something we called for already in our 2016 effort, and we failed; 10.1007/s10346-016-0686-6), but what is your strategy of ensuring that? Please make clear how can a person contribute to this joint effort and what is the future (and sustainability) of this ‘active’ database branch on the one hand; and how will you ensure quality standards among various contributors on the other hand?
Specific comments:
L10: magnitude, frequency and impacts of processes …
L45: is there any specific reason for mentioning this particular GLOF?
L62: more info about the workflow and explored types of resources is needed (see my general comment)
L96: strictly speaking, lake dam type is not a characteristic of a location
L129: did you map lakes or GLOF (impacts)?
L129-136: this procedure applies also for Dates, right?
L221: I guess that this recent gap 2021-2022 is rather due to the reporting lag (I’m aware of at least one GLOF from moraine-dammed lake in 2022: https://repositorio.inaigem.gob.pe/items/c0beb0b1-e989-41e4-a785-8d5b699a48de) that leads me to my general comment about systematic search among various resources and the need to specify that in more detail)
Fig. 7: intuitively, I would expect no data in grey color
L242: those % should be related to share of individual lake dam types among GLOF-producing lakes
L353-368: please consider a separate sub-section discussing the future of the active branch of your database and ways how local experts are planned to be involved (see my general comment)
L368: Interesting, would you consider outbursts of thermokarst lakes in high latitude regions to be GLOFs? That would increase a total numbers a lot (see e.g. http://doi.org/10.1002/ppp.2038)
L369: please make clear what should preferably be cited if your data are used – zenodo repository, uni-potsdam website or this paper?
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To sum up, I support the publication of this manuscript once some moderate revisions addressing my two general comments are made.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2022-449-RC1 - AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Natalie Lützow, 10 May 2023
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RC2: 'Comment on essd-2022-449', Anonymous Referee #2, 04 Apr 2023
The paper describes a new global inventory on GLOFs that is claimed to more than double the number of reported GLOFs in a previous global inventory.
The topic is extremely acute as global deglaciation has brought about skyrocketing number of new glacial lakes and increase in potential danger.
Brief examination on such underreported regions as Caucasus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan shows that authors put real effort in registering as many GLOFs as it is possible. But still some of known cases for Caucasus and Central Asia are not presented in the database because they were reported in Russian language publications. Just a brief example: more than 30 GLOF locations in Kyrgyzstan is reported here: http://ru.mes.kg/Kniga/book_rus078.html
Мониторинг, прогнозирование опасных процессов и явлений на территории Кыргызской Республики (Изд. 18-е с изм. и доп.), Б.: МЧС КР, 2021 - 819 с.
Monitoring, forecast of dangerous processes and phenomena in Kyrgyzstan Republic (18th Edition). Bishkek: MCHS KR, 2021 – 819 p. (in Russian)
While in the presented inventory includes 17 locations in Kyrgyzstan.
That is probably out of the scope of the paper to work with sources in local languages, but still this problem and potential perspective for development needs to be mentioned and discussed.
Some of additional cases for the Caucasus can be found here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S009780782207003X
The paper overall is well written and well-illustrated, anyway there are still some points that need improvement or correction:
- Not all study regions are plotted on Fig.1
- It is not clear if data on area before (Ab) and after the GLOF (Aa) was reported in the literature was it included in the database. Or all values in the database are based on performed analysis based on satellite imagery.
- The database would benefit from adding mapped glacial lakes outlines before and after the GLOF
- The authors mention source types in Methods section of the paper, but there is no such field in the database. Including it would benefit the database.
- For some regions (for ex. Caucasus) approach to sorting the event is not clear (not date of the event). Please check that.
- Fields from reported_impacts to reported_fatalities include letters (u/x/a) and figures. It needs to be transcribed in the text. It is also not the best idea to use both character and numeric data in one filed.
- What is a location identifier in the base?
- It would be useful to have information on total number of fatalities, destroyed buildings etc. (globally and regionally)
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2022-449-RC2 - AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Natalie Lützow, 10 May 2023
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RC3: 'Comment on essd-2022-449', Anonymous Referee #3, 06 Apr 2023
The paper presents detailed database on the GLOF events, based on large number peer-review papers satellite and aerial image analyses and other sources. This is undoubtedly great contribution to the data collection on GLOF and should be published and be available to other researchers.
During reading the paper several questions arise:
1. When you write about standardized protocol for reporting characteristics of GLOF (“Our data collection process emphasizes the support of local experts in contributing previously undocumented cases, and we recommend applying systematic protocols when reporting new cases”), do you have some special questionnaire (protocol), that can be added to the paper? Or do you mean that it is recommended to other researchers just to collect the same 57 characteristics of GLOF as in your study? It is a little bit confusing.
2. I agree with referee 1 (Adam Emmer), that it is not clear, how can local researchers from different regions contribute data about new events to your database. Such additional option can do database more “active” and at the same time more sited.
3. Can you provide some additional explanations and examples about future prospections in the use of the database on the GLOF events? Now it is written in the conclusion only as “Following this approach, our collated database allows for objective comparisons on different spatial or temporal scales. Potential analysis based on the data might concern trends in GLOF occurrence, magnitude and impact, providing a valuable base for future hazard, risk assessment, and early warning”. The rest is up to the reader's and user’s imagination. But you are certainly have valuable experience with the previous version of your database and there are some examples in the literature, which can be added either to the introduction or to the conclusions.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2022-449-RC3 - AC3: 'Reply on RC3', Natalie Lützow, 10 May 2023
Natalie Lützow et al.
Data sets
Glacier Lake Outburst Flood Database V3.0 Natalie Lützow and Georg Veh https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7330345
Natalie Lützow et al.
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