Assessment Principles for Glacier and Permafrost Hazards in Mountain Regions published in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science
Based on the GAPHAZ Technical Guidance Document for the Assessment of Glacier and Permafrost Hazards in Mountain Regions, an article on assessment principles for glacier and permafrost hazards in mountain regions has been published in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science (ORE NHS). This article can be seen as an extended summary of the Technical Guidance Document with updated references, including also recent works, published after 2017.
ORE NHS article (open access): [Link]
GAPHAZ Technical Guidance Document English [PDF]
GAPHAZ Technical Guidance Document Spanish [PDF]
GAPHAZ Technical Guidance Document Russian [PDF]

Summary of first insights into the Chamoli disaster, February 7 2021
In a remarkable community effort, an ad-hoc working group of international and Indian scientists from the wider GAPHAZ community and beyond is working on understanding the processes that led to the destructive flood in Chamoli, Uttarakhand, India on February 7, 2021. A document summarizing the insights on this event is available below. This summary is a working document, targeting to decision makers and technicians involved in follow-up activities on the ground, but also open to scientists, the press and other interested persons. Updates are released when more information becomes available. All facts presented here are of preliminary nature and subject to further investigations.
Download Summary Chamoli, Update Feb 20, 2021: [link pdf]
Update June 10, 2021: This GAPHAZ community effort on the reconstruction of the Chamoli disaster resulted in a Science publication with 40+ authors, led by Dan Shugar.

Guidelines for the Assessment of Glacier and Permafrost Hazards now also available in Russian
A Russian version of the Technical Guidance Document for the Assessment of Glacier and Permafrost Hazards in Mountain Regions of GAPHAZ (see below) has been elaborated. Along with the Spanish version, this complements the efforts of making these guidelines accessible to non-english speaking representatives of agencies, authorities and practitioners in charge of the assessment and management of glacier and permafrost related hazards. This translation was supported by World Bank and its Central Asia Water & Energy Program (CAWEP).
Download document in Russian: [link pdf Russian version]
See below for the original document in English and the Spanish version.

Technical Guidance Document for the Assessment of Glacier and Permafrost Hazards in Mountain Regions
Hazards relating to glaciers and permafrost are a threat to lives and livelihoods in many mountain regions. In view of rapid global warming and related changes in the mountain cryosphere, landscapes are evolving and new threats are emerging. Coupled with ongoing expansion of people and their infrastructure into high mountain valleys there is an increasing potential for societal losses and far-reaching disasters.
Recognizing the need for a structured and comprehensive approach to hazard assessment underpinned by latest scientific understanding, GAPHAZ has produced a technical guidance document as a resource for international and national agencies, responsible authorities and private companies. This work was supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
Download document: [link pdf English version]
Versión en español disponible / Also available in Spanish: [link pdf Spanish version]
Also available in Russian (since Dec 2020): [link pdf Russian version]

17 July and 21 September 2016 glacier collapses in Tibet: analysis and documentation by GAPHAZ
On 17 July 2016 a glacier collapse of roughly 60-70 million cubic metres in volume caused a huge ice avalanche in western Tibet, west of the Aru Co lake, Rutog county, Ngari prefecture, killing 9 herders and hundreds of animals.
An international group of scientists affiliated to GAPHAZ was puzzled about the occurrence of the similarly looking event in Tibet. Strikingly unusual characteristics were this avalanche’s immense size and its distant travel on a very low slope. The group investigated the glacier development before the 17 July 2016 glacier collapse in Tibet and the characteristics of the resulting avalanche, based on a large number of visual and radar satellite images and on computer models. The analyses showed that the 17 July glacier collapse was preceded by precursory movements and crevassing since at least 2013. Such slow glacier destabilisations – called glacier surges – are common in some parts of the world, for instance in the Karakoram or in Alaska, but rare in Tibet. They can lead to an increase of the glacier flow velocities by a factor of 10 or more, and to a rapid advance of the glacier tongue, but no cases have been known so far where they caused big ice avalanches. Computer simulations of the 17 July avalanche suggest that the extreme length of its runout appears to be caused by water lubrication and that considerable amounts of water must have been stored in the glacier at initiation of the collapse.
During their retrospective investigations based on satellite data, scientists found strongly enhanced crevassing on the glacier that collapsed on 17 July for spring/summer 2016. During this work the scientists discovered also that the neighbour glacier, just south of the one that collapsed in July, showed similar signs of destabilisation. Local Chinese authorities made similar observations from the ground and using unmanned aerial vehicles.
Comparing data from the satellite “Sentinel 2” of 19 September 2016 (available on 21 September) with earlier data from a range of satellites, the scientists then discovered strong crevasses on the southern glacier, which alerted them about the possibility of an upcoming second glacier collapse and avalanche. Avalanche computer models were quickly run to estimate the potential area that could be affected by a similar event if it were to occur. In an ad-hoc coordinated way, facilitated through GAPHAZ, the information was used to alert Chinese colleagues, who then informed the local government. By the time these warnings reached the authorities in charge, though, the southern glacier seems already to have collapsed on 21 September 2016 and produced a second huge avalanche of similar size and appearance as the 17 July avalanche. In this case, fortunately, nobody was killed or hurt by the avalanche.
The scientists involved are starting now careful investigations about causes and triggers of the twin glacier collapses and the characteristics of the resulting avalanches. A particular focus is on why two nearby glaciers failed at similar times in similar ways, a fact that points to overarching processes behind the twin events, such as meteorological conditions, longer term climate change, or basic geological or topographic factors.
The 17 July and 21 September 2016 glacier collapses are first of all tragedies for the local people. Scientifically they are striking for the coincidence of two nearby glaciers collapsing within a short time, but demonstrate also the progress in early warning capabilities. The fact that remote observations based on a large number of very different satellite data could be carried out with a delay of only few hours or a day between data acquisition from space and analyses on the ground, involving scientists and satellite teams from several nations, in fact is substantial progress for early warning capabilities related to natural hazards in remote regions.
For more information and contacts please refer to the following document: [link pdf]

GAPHAZ issues
Glacier- and permafrost-related hazards represent a continuous and growing threat to human lives and infrastructure in high mountain regions. Related disasters can kill hundreds or even thousands of people at once and cause damage with a global sum on the order of 100 million EURO annually.
Present atmospheric warming especially affects terrestrial systems with surface and subsurface ice involved. Changes in glacier and permafrost equilibrium are shifting hazard zones beyond historical knowledge. Furthermore, human settlements and activities extend towards endangered zones. As a consequence, empirical knowledge will have to be increasingly replaced by improved process understanding.
The recently accelerated retreat of glaciers in nearly all mountain ranges of the world has led to the development of numerous potentially dangerous glacier lakes. In spring 2002, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), therefore, launched a high-level warning in view of the dramatic growth of gigantic glacier lakes in the Himalayas.
Despite of the significant impacts of glacier and permafrost hazards and disasters, and despite of the increasingly urgent need to improve understanding and prevention of glacier and permafrost hazards in high mountains, there is no collaborative scientific initiative under the auspices of an international scientific lead body focussing on such hazards.