Assessment of cloudbursts, extreme rainfall and vulnerable regions in the Upper Ganga basin, Uttarakhand, India

Mishra, P. K.; Thayyen, Renoj J.; Singh, Hemant; Das, Swagatam; Nema, Manish K.; Kumar, Pavan

doi:10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102744

Cited by 28 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…However, the large tunneling must have damaged the geological structure of the mountain and the groundwater system, resulting in the stability of the town's foundations being reduced in the mountains. And with the natural topographic barrier causing the town to receive around 109 mm/month of rainfall between 2015 and 2022 45 (See Figs. 10 and 11 ), the large amount of extreme precipitation leaching into the town's aquifers from high altitudes via rivers and roads could further exacerbate the damage to the town's foundations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring and analysis of surface deformation in alpine valley areas based on multidimensional InSAR technology

Fan

Ren

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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Joshimath has received much attention for its massive ground subsidence at the beginning of the year. Rapid urbanization and its unique geographical location may have been one of the factors contributing to the occurrence of this geological disaster. In high mountain valley areas, the complex occurrence mechanism and diverse disaster patterns of geological hazards highlight the inadequacy of manual monitoring. To address this problem, the inversion of deformation of the Joshimath surface in multiple directions can be achieved by multidimensional InSAR techniques. Therefore, in this paper, the multidimensional SBAS-InSAR technique was used to process the lift-track Sentinel-1 data from 2020 to 2023 to obtain the two-dimensional vertical and horizontal deformation rates and time series characteristics of the Joshimath ground surface. To discover the causes of deformation and its correlation with anthropogenic activities and natural disasters by analyzing the spatial and temporal evolution of surface deformation. The results show that the area with the largest cumulative deformation is located in the northeastern part of the town, with a maximum cumulative subsidence of 271.2 mm and a cumulative horizontal movement of 336.5 mm. The spatial distribution of surface deformation is based on the lower part of the hill and develops towards the upper part of the hill, showing a trend of expansion from the bottom to the top. The temporal evolution is divided into two phases: gentle to rapid, and it is tentatively concluded that the decisive factor that caused the significant change in the rate of surface deformation and the early onset of the geological subsidence hazard was triggered by the 4.7 magnitude earthquake that struck near the town on 11 September 2021.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring and analysis of surface deformation in alpine valley areas based on multidimensional InSAR technology

Fan

Ren

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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“…The flash flooding in the Alaknanda and Dhauliganga channels exacerbated the situation by causing soil erosion beneath the town on the river's banks, rendering it more susceptible to instability. The remarkable flood events of June 2013 and February 2021 had a negative impact on soil stability, created landslide zones, and increased toe erosion and slope instability along Ravigram Nala and Nau Ganga Nala 68 , 70 , 86 . Also, during the flood event on 18 October 2021, the district of Chamoli received a very heavy rainfall of 81.9 cm for a duration of 4 h. Toe cutting, or the reduction of toe support, was observed in many areas along the Alaknanda and Dhauliganga rivers, particularly in the meanders of the rivers.…”

Section: Results and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The topography of the Joshimath region consists of highly elevated, rugged, mountainous www.nature.com/scientificreports/ terrain that comprises deep valleys and steep cliffs with an average elevation of more than 6100 m. The climate in the region varies from sub-tropical monsoon type in some areas to tropical upland type in others [65][66][67] . The northern part of the region is characterized by severe winters and higher rainfall 68 . The year can be divided into four distinctive seasons: the winter season, which is characterized by cold weather from December to February, the warm season from March to May, the monsoon season brought by south-west winds from June to September, and the post-monsoon season from October to November.…”

Section: Physiography and Climatementioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing Joshimath’s sinking: causes, consequences, and future prospects with remote sensing techniques

Awasthi,

Jain,

Sahoo

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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The Himalayas are highly susceptible to various natural disasters, such as the tectonically induced land deformation, earthquakes, landslides, and extreme climatic events. Recently, the Joshimath town witnessed a significantly large land subsidence activity. The phenomenon resulted in the development of large cracks in roads and in over 868 civil structures, posing a significant risk to inhabitants and infrastructure of the area. This study uses a time-series synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry-based PSInSAR approach to monitor land deformation utilizing multi-temporal Sentinel-1 datasets. The line of sight (LOS) land deformation velocity for the Joshimath region, calculated for the year 2022–2023 using a PSInSAR-based approach, varies from − 89.326 to + 94.46 mm/year. The + ve sign indicates the LOS velocity/displacement away from the SAR sensor, whereas − ve sign signifies the earth's movement towards the SAR sensor in the direction of LOS. In addition, the study investigates feature tracking land displacement analysis using multi-temporal high-resolution Planet datasets. The result of this analysis is consistent with the PSInSAR results. The study also estimated the land deformation for the periods 2016–2017, 2018–2019, and 2020–2021 separately. Our results show that the Joshimath region experienced the highest land deformation during the year 2022–2023. During this period, the maximum land subsidence was observed in the north-western part of the town. The maximum LOS land deformation velocity + 60.45 mm/year to + 94.46 mm/year (2022–2023), occurred around Singhdwar, whereas the north and central region of the Joshimath town experienced moderate to high subsidence of the order of + 10.45 mm/year to + 60.45 mm/year (2022–2023), whereas the south-west part experienced an expansion of the order of 84.65 mm/year to − 13.13 mm/year (2022–2023). Towards the south-east, the town experienced rapid land subsidence, − 13.13 mm/year to − 5 mm/year (2022–2023). The study analyzes the causative factors of the observed land deformation in the region. Furthermore, this work assesses the ground conditions of the Joshimath region using UAV datasets acquired in the most critically affected areas such as Singhdhaar, Hotel Mountain View, Malhari Hotel, and Manoharbagh. Finally, the study provides recommendations and future prospects for the development policies that need to be adopted in the critical Himalayan regions susceptible to land deformation. The study suggests that land deformation in the region is primarily attributed to uncontrolled anthropogenic activities, infrastructural development, along with inadequate drainage systems.

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“…Being the most populated and largest river basin in India, it is evident that a large portion of the population of India is affected by climate extremes in the basin. Ganga river basin due to its varying physiological conditions experiences several extreme climatic events, for example, cloudbursts (Mishra et al, 2022), rainfall extremes (Swarnkar et al, 2021), droughts (Bhatt et al, 2022), avalanches (Thayyen et al, 2021), etc. Therefore, it is essential to study the impact of temperature extremes on the population of the region as humans are negatively affected in every aspect socially and economically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projected climate extremes over agro-climatic zones of Ganga River Basin under 1.5, 2, and 3° global warming levels

Singh,

Joshi,

Suryavanshi

2023

Environ Monit Assess

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In the present study, we have evaluated the extreme precipitation and temperature indices over the 10 agro-climatic zones falling under Ganga River basin (GRB)utilizing a high resolution daily gridded temperature and precipitation multi-model ensembled CMIP6 dataset (0.25°x0.25°) under global warming levels of 1.5°C, 2°C, and 3°C.We found that annual daily minimum temperature(TNN) showing higher rise of about 67% than maximum temperature (TXX)of 48%in GRB. The basin also experiences a greater increase in the frequency of warm nights (TN90P) of about 67.71% compared to warm days (TX90P) of 29.1% for 3°C global warming level.Along with extreme indices, population exposed due to the impact of the extreme maximum temperature has also been analysed for progressive warming levels. Population exposure to extreme temperature event (TXX) has been analysed with 20-year return period using GEV distribution method. The study concludes that exposed population to extreme temperature event experienced an increase from 46.99-52.16% for whole Ganga Basin. Consecutive Dry Days (CDD) and Consecutive Wet Days (CWD) both show a signi cant increasing trend, but CWD has signi cant increase in majority of the zones, while CDD show signi cant decreasing trend for some of the zones for three warming levels periods.Extreme climate indices help to understand the frequency and intensity of the extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall, droughts, heatwaves etc. to develop early warning systems and adaptation strategies to mitigate such events.

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Assessment of cloudbursts, extreme rainfall and vulnerable regions in the Upper Ganga basin, Uttarakhand, India

Cited by 28 publications

References 19 publications

Monitoring and analysis of surface deformation in alpine valley areas based on multidimensional InSAR technology

Monitoring and analysis of surface deformation in alpine valley areas based on multidimensional InSAR technology

Analyzing Joshimath’s sinking: causes, consequences, and future prospects with remote sensing techniques

Projected climate extremes over agro-climatic zones of Ganga River Basin under 1.5, 2, and 3° global warming levels

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