the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Progress and challenges in glacial lake outburst flood research (2017–2021): a research community perspective
- 1Institute of Geography and Regional Science, University of Graz, Graz, Austria
- 2Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- 3Institute of Environmental Science, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- 4Environmental Studies Program and Geography Department, University of Oregon, Eugene, USA
- 5Institute of Environmental Science and Geography, University Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
- 6Institute of Geosciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
- 7Columbia University, New York, USA
- 8Geography and Environmental Science, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK
- 9UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK
- 10Insituto Argentino de Nivología Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales (IANIGLA) – CONICET, UNCUYO, Gobierno de Mendoza, Mendoza, Argentina
- 11Center for the Study of Regional Development, JNU, New Delhi, India
- 12Reynolds International Ltd., Mold, UK
- 13Faculty of Geosciences, University Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- 14Department of Geology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain
- 15Department of Geography, Kumaun University, Nainital, India
- 16Department of Science and Mathematics, The American College of Greece, Greece
- 17Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- 18Department of Culture and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 19Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
- 20Department of Geoinformatics, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, India
- 21University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland
- 22Environmental Studies Program, University of Oregon, Eugene, USA
- 23University of Liege, Liege, Belgium
- 24Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brasil
- 25Instituto Nacional de Investigación en Glaciares y Ecosistemas de Montaña (INAIGEM), Lima, Peru
- 26National Agrarian University La Molina, Lima, Peru
- 27International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Káthmándú, Nepal
- 28School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA
- 29University College London, London, UK
- 30Centre for Geography and Environmental Science, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
- 31Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway
- 32Geography and Environmental Studies, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru
- 1Institute of Geography and Regional Science, University of Graz, Graz, Austria
- 2Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- 3Institute of Environmental Science, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- 4Environmental Studies Program and Geography Department, University of Oregon, Eugene, USA
- 5Institute of Environmental Science and Geography, University Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
- 6Institute of Geosciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
- 7Columbia University, New York, USA
- 8Geography and Environmental Science, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK
- 9UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK
- 10Insituto Argentino de Nivología Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales (IANIGLA) – CONICET, UNCUYO, Gobierno de Mendoza, Mendoza, Argentina
- 11Center for the Study of Regional Development, JNU, New Delhi, India
- 12Reynolds International Ltd., Mold, UK
- 13Faculty of Geosciences, University Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- 14Department of Geology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain
- 15Department of Geography, Kumaun University, Nainital, India
- 16Department of Science and Mathematics, The American College of Greece, Greece
- 17Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- 18Department of Culture and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 19Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
- 20Department of Geoinformatics, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, India
- 21University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland
- 22Environmental Studies Program, University of Oregon, Eugene, USA
- 23University of Liege, Liege, Belgium
- 24Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brasil
- 25Instituto Nacional de Investigación en Glaciares y Ecosistemas de Montaña (INAIGEM), Lima, Peru
- 26National Agrarian University La Molina, Lima, Peru
- 27International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Káthmándú, Nepal
- 28School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA
- 29University College London, London, UK
- 30Centre for Geography and Environmental Science, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
- 31Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway
- 32Geography and Environmental Studies, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru
Abstract. Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are among the most concerning consequences of retreating glaciers in mountain ranges worldwide. GLOFs have attracted significant attention amongst scientists and practitioners in the past few decades, with particular interests in the physical drivers and mechanisms of GLOF hazard, and socioeconomic and other human-related developments that affect vulnerability to GLOF events. This increased research focus on GLOFs is reflected in the gradually increasing number of papers published annually. This study offers an overview of recent GLOF research by analysing 570 peer-reviewed GLOF studies published between 2017 and 2021 (Web of Science and Scopus databases), reviewing the content, geographical focus as well as other characteristics of GLOF studies. This review is complemented with perspectives from the first GLOF conference (7–9 July 2021, online) where a global GLOF research community from major mountain regions gathered to discuss the current state of the art of integrated GLOF research. Therefore, representatives from 17 countries identified and elaborated trends and challenges and proposed possible ways forward to navigate future GLOF research, in four thematic areas: (i) understanding GLOFs – timing and processes; (ii) modelling GLOFs and GLOF process chains; (iii) GLOF risk management, prevention and warning; (iv) human dimensions of GLOFs and GLOF attribution to climate change.
Adam Emmer et al.
Status: open (until 12 Jul 2022)
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RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2022-143', Guoqing Zhang, 25 Jun 2022
reply
In this study, the authors reveal the current progress and challenges of glacial lake outburst flood research in recent five years (2017-2021) launched from the first GLOF conference (7-9 July 2021, online). This analysis was based on the collections of 570 peer-reviewed GLOF studies published in 2017-2021 (Web of Science and Scopus databases). Four thematic areas related with GLOFs were summarized. This study is interesting and this manuscript was presented well. I recommend this manuscript was to publish in NHESS with the further improvement of the suggested comments below.
Major comments:
1) The papers published in 2021 were collected fully? The number of papers in 2021 is smaller than 2020, the search was performed in March 2022. Some papers published in 2021 have a delay to update, especially after March 2022. I suggest the authors to update the number of papers published in 2021. In addition, some papers in Discussion/Preprint status were included in the statistics? The status of these papers can be changed and this could affect the finial results.
2) How about the current progress by different countries? The reader could be interesting the trend of leader authors from the different countries, especially in high mountain regions from the developing countries status?
3) The description of statistics of published papers is clear. However, the key finding of this study is the current progress and challenges of GLOF. At present, these are mainly described in text. It is possible to add some schematic diagrams to display these directly?
Specific comments:
1) Table 1. The classifications of four thematic areas are considered in Table 1?
2) Figure 1 need to be improved for publication.
3) Table 2 need to be redesigned for readable. This table is too long, and sources can be separated in a new column.
4) Page 17, L300: “(e.g., Aggarwal et al., 2017; Muneeb et al., 2021)” suggested references here: doi: 10.3389/feart.2021.775195
5) Page 17, L305: please decrease the number of papers cited at one place. You can separate it at several places. Others need similar corrections.
6) Page 17, L315: “On local scale, a recent trend goes toward better understanding of controls, preconditions, triggers of, and interactions during individual GLOFs (Carrivick et al., 2017; Blauvelt et al., 2020; Vilca et al., 2021),” suggested references here: doi: 10.5194/tc-15-4145-2021; doi: 10.1017/jog.2019.13
7) Page 19, L360: Allen et al., 2016; Schwanghart et al.,2016; Allen et al., 2019 -> Allen et al., 2016, 2019; Schwanghart et al.,2016. Others need similar corrections.
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RC2: 'Comment on nhess-2022-143', Anonymous Referee #2, 27 Jun 2022
reply
1) general comments
The consortium of authors provides an up-to-date insight into the development of scientific reporting and research related to the phenomenon of floods from glacial lake outbursts worldwide. In doing so, the comprehensive study analyzes the time period from 2017 - 2021 in a continuation of previous work, noting important trends. The study was launched on the occasion of the first GLOF conference in 2021 and is based on the evaluation of more than 500 scientific articles recorded in the authoritative scientific publication databases Web of Science and Scopus. The evaluation is very comprehensive and well structured. However, it lacks the classic division of chapters into results, evaluation, and discussion after the introduction and data and methods. A difficulty is the consistent delimitation of the time period and the consideration of articles that have been submitted but not yet final published. Here, an identical procedure is also of great importance for future similar work.
A glacial lake outburst flood becomes more and more of a compellingly dangerous process as the article progresses. Not sure if this impression is intentional or could be softened a bit. A graph showing the temporal development of the published articles per region would enrich the article in chapter 4.1. The presentation of the tables could be improved and made more attractive. In the final part of the relatively long discussion, strong emphasis is placed on sensitivities of an indigenous population and hurdles of the assessors with respect to hazard communication. These aspects, while very exciting, do not necessarily belong to the paper and would be worthy of a separate publication at best. The paper is linguistically well written with a good reading flow. The list of references is not surprisingly very long. Here, it would be worth considering to position the entirety of the references in an appendix and to mention only the really relevant papers in the article.
Basically: one wishes for conferences with a similar output and such a good overview also in other related research areas!
2) specific comments
Chapter 2.1 mentions the difficulty in dealing with scientific articles in languages other than English, which are not (completely) recorded in the databases. It also mentions the abundance of technical reports, gray literature, and local and indigenous knowledge. It is not clear how this will be dealt with.
Chapters 3 and 4 represent results. They could be named accordingly (with creation of additional subchapters).
In Table 2, the 3rd part states the challenges in management, preparedness and warning. What is the management of non-events or good-natured glacial lake outbursts?
In the same Table 2, the comment in the first section on observed Trends and Progress already seems to me to be a strong interpretation and not a neutrally presented result.
Maybe add a graph with number of events per region over time in chapter 4.1.
From chapter 4.2 on, I have the impression that the text changes to a discussion of the results. At the end of the chapter, clarification of when a glacial lake outburst becomes a GLOF would be even more precise.
The discussion of the human dimension context in chapter 4.5 and chapter 4.7 is relatively long at the end of the paper, but in my opinion it is not in the center of the study. Possibly shortening or even transferring it to a separate article should be considered.
3) technical corrections
Figure1 should be be improved for publication
Table2 needs improvement for better readability. List references separately.
page8, line172: number «abstracts» with (A) and number «titles» with (B). This creates the reference to Fig. 2.
page20, lane393: Line break before: "First, local communities..."
page22, line454: Line break before: "The fact that research...".
page22, line470: Number should be (vi)
page23, line492: Disclaimer: Please state who or what ICIMOD is.
Adam Emmer et al.
Adam Emmer et al.
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