Combining UAV and Landsat data to assess glacier changes on the central Tibetan Plateau

Abstract In recent years, researchers have focused on the applications of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) in environmental remote sensing tasks. However, studies on glacier monitoring using UAV technology are relatively scarce, especially for high mountain glacier monitoring. To explore the feasibil...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Glaciology
Main Authors: Xue, Yuang, Jing, Zhefan, Kang, Shichang, He, Xiaobo, Li, Chenyu
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jog.2021.37
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S002214302100037X
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Summary:Abstract In recent years, researchers have focused on the applications of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) in environmental remote sensing tasks. However, studies on glacier monitoring using UAV technology are relatively scarce, especially for high mountain glacier monitoring. To explore the feasibility of UAV technology for high mountain glaciers, four UAV surveys were deployed on two glaciers of the central Tibetan Plateau. Based on the images retrieved by UAV in 2017 and 2019, orthomosaics and digital elevation models were produced to quantify the length, area and elevation changes in the ablation zone of these two glaciers at different times. Additionally, we utilized several Landsat scenes to derive glacier changes over the last 30 years and combined these with the UAV data to assess the advantages and disadvantages of UAV technology in mountain glacier monitoring.