Abstract:
Snow avalanches are highly lethal disasters due to their sudden
occurrence and impacts. In Pakistan, a similar incident was occurred at
Gyari Sector on 07 April 2012 at 2:00 a.m. killing 140
people. A study
was conducted to monitor the major causes of such huge human losses, as
well as to provide suggestions for future preventive measures. Pakistan,
being Alpine glacier and Snowpack resource rich country, always requires
proper monitoring, map
ping and estimation of these avalanche prone
areas for better planning and decision making. Environmental monitoring
and mapping of all these very important areas of natural resources, can
easily be addressed with advanced technologies of Remote Sensing a
nd
GIS. In the present study, free satellite images as well as DEM of Google
Earth were utilized as the major data source to investigate Gyari Sector
avalanche incident. Besides this, 3D Profiling utility of Google Earth was
used for tracking potential ava
lanche paths and their slopes. It was noted
that the Gyari Sector infrastructure was established exactly in the line of
an avalanche path. The path of this avalanche which had smashed out all
the buildings, people, and other infrastructure, was thoroughly
investigated using Google Earth utilities. The slope of this avalanche path
was calculated to be
37.27
o
, which falls under the maximum danger zone
limit of avalanche occurrence. Alternate future options for installation of
necessary infrastructure in the a
djoining areas are also proposed in this
study. Moreover, possible pre
-
emptive measures to retaining the existing
site are also discussed.
Remote Sensing and GIS techniques, in general,
and Google Earth
techniques, in particular, are found to be very usefu
l in
monitoring and mapping avalanche disasters as well as for their
combatting efforts.
