Pakistan Journal of Meteorology Vol. 8, Issue 16: Jan 2012 Monitoring and Estimation of Glacial Resource of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques Ashraf, A. 1,2 , R. Naz 2 , R. Roohi 2 Abstract The agriculture and hydropower development in Pakistan is heavily dependant on the snow and glacial resource of Upper Indus Basin. Baseline information of this resource is essential for future management of water resources and economic development of the area. The satellite remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques were utilized for developing base data of glacial resource of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). The study revealed that there are over 224 glaciers containing ice-reserves of about 4.9 cubic km mainly in the Neelum valley district of AJK area. The glaciers predominantly belong to Cirque and Mountain types. Average thickness of the glaciers is about 24m. The glaciated area stretches over 109 sq km i.e. about 0.8% of the total Kashmir area. The coverage of glaciers and lakes is dominant over 4000-4500 m elevation range. There are altogether 76 glacial lakes that cover an aggregate area of about 545 ha in the study area. Majority of these lakes belong to Erosion and Cirque types. The image interpretation techniques of remote sensing helped in identification of glaciers and glacial lakes in the high mountainous terrain of the Kashmir area. In order to conserve glacial resources for future use, their regular monitoring is required for effective water resource management and development especially in context of probable increase in global warming in this part of the Himalayan region. Keywords: Glacial resource, remote sensing, Cirque, global warming, Neelum valley, Kashmir Introduction The glacial resource of northern Pakistan represents a unique resource of fresh water vital for agricultural, industrial, and hydropower generation. A major part of the snow and ice mass of the Pakistan’s Himalayan region is concentrated in the watershed of the Indus basin. The glaciers of Kashmir lie in Mangla watershed which is drained by Jhelum River contributing about 16 percent flows to the Indus River system. The glacial environment is an important economic component of tourism and an influential factor in high mountain ecology. The glaciers, which consist of a huge amount of perpetual snow and ice, are found to create many glacial lakes. These glaciers as well as glacial lakes are the sources of headwater of our main Indus river system. Glaciers react very sensitively to climate fluctuations, and thereby provide some of the clearest evidence of ongoing climate change. For these and other reasons they have been selected among the essential climate variables (ECVs) in the terrestrial domain within the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS 2004). Studies have revealed that the rate of Himalayan glaciers melt is increasing and that they are receding faster than in any other part of the world (Eccleston, 2008). According to Kaul (2005), there are 6500 glaciers in the Himalayan regions in India and out of which 3136 glaciers are in the mountain belt of Jammu and Kashmir. Of the major 327 glaciers in the Himalayas, 60 are in Kashmir and Ladakh. Due to their subsequent depletion, annual flows would be much lower which would inevitably affect the performance of dams. Half a billion people in the Himalaya-Hindukush region and a quarter billion downstream who rely on glacial melt waters could be seriously affected (Gilani, 2010). Glacier thinning and retreat in the Himalayas has resulted in the formation of new glacial lakes and the enlargement of existing ones due to the accumulation of melt water behind loosely consolidated end moraine dams that had formed when the glaciers attained their Little Ice Age maxima (ICIMOD, 2011). A detailed glacier inventory is critical to assess these changes and to model their future evolution (Paul, 2010). A comprehensive overview of the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) database was given by WGMS (2008). 1 mashr22@yahoo.com 2 Water Resources Research Institute, NARC, Islamabad. 31