Glacial Lake Outburst Floods: A Review of Events, Causes, and Impact

The occurrences of disastrous Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) events have increased dramatically in recent years in response to climate change. Such events are highly complex and volatile flow phenomenon, which triggers suddenly and pose great risk to lives and infrastructure in the susceptible areas. The Himalayan region is one of the most vulnerable regions to GLOF events as the extent of glacial retreat has greatly increased due to increasing temperature and significantly impacted the volume and bathymetry of the Glacial Lakes. In order to reduce the after-effects of such events, it is vital to understand the causes, triggering factors, and impacts of the reported GLOF events. The present paper intends to achieve this objective by inventorying the details of the reported GLOF events, exploring the remote sensing tools and numerical modeling methodologies used for detecting and investigating these events and discussing the predictive dam-breach models reported in the literature. The outcome of this study will also aid in understanding the effects of climate change on the young and fragile Himalayan region.