Development and Testing of a Glacier Mass Balance Model Using VB.NET to Simulate Glacier Surface Area for Himalayan Glaciers

Glacier assessment and monitoring are crucial for understanding glacial hydrology and its response to climate change. A user-friendly glacier mass balance model was developed in this study, which requires basic meteorological inputs to generate glacier mass balance components, including, melt rate, accumulation rate, and evaporation, and subsequently generate daily glacier area. The model was calibrated and tested for 15 selected glaciers in the Mago basin of Arunachal Pradesh. An automatic calibration module was developed to automate the calibration process and generate the optimal set of parameters required for the simulation process. The model’s performance was satisfactory, with an average error percentage ranging from 1.01 to 6.32% during calibration and 4.66 to 7.34% during the validation period. The testing on the validation glaciers also produced favourable results, with average errors ranging from 1.98 to 9.06%. Consequently, the model proved to be reliable in simulating glacier areas for one test glacier each from Western and Central Himalaya also.