A Comparative Study of Active Rock Glaciers Mapped from Geomorphic- and Kinematic-Based Approaches in Daxue Shan, Southeast Tibetan Plateau
Active rock glaciers (ARGs) are important permafrost landforms in alpine regions. Identifying ARGs has mainly relied on visual interpretation of their geomorphic characteristics with optical remote sensing images, while mapping ARGs from their kinematic features has also become popular in recent yea...
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ftmdpi:oai:mdpi.com:/2072-4292/13/23/4931/ 2023-10-09T21:55:11+02:00 A Comparative Study of Active Rock Glaciers Mapped from Geomorphic- and Kinematic-Based Approaches in Daxue Shan, Southeast Tibetan Plateau Jiaxin Cai Xiaowen Wang Guoxiang Liu Bing Yu agris 2021-12-04 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13234931 eng eng Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute Remote Sensing Image Processing https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs13234931 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Remote Sensing Volume 13 Issue 23 Pages: 4931 rock glacier inventory surface deformation mountain permafrost Text 2021 ftmdpi https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13234931 2023-09-10T23:55:40Z Active rock glaciers (ARGs) are important permafrost landforms in alpine regions. Identifying ARGs has mainly relied on visual interpretation of their geomorphic characteristics with optical remote sensing images, while mapping ARGs from their kinematic features has also become popular in recent years. However, a thorough comparison of geomorphic- and kinematic-based inventories of ARGs has not been carried out. In this study, we employed a multi-temporal interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technique to derive the mean annual surface displacement velocity over the Daxue Shan, Southeast Tibet Plateau. We then compiled a rock glacier inventory by synergistically interpreting the InSAR-derived surface displacements and geomorphic features based on Google Earth images. Our InSAR-assist kinematic-based inventory (KBI) was further compared with a pre-existing geomorphic-based inventory (GBI) of rock glaciers in Daxue Shan. The results show that our InSAR-assist inventory consists of 344 ARGs, 36% (i.e., 125) more than that derived from the geomorphic-based method (i.e., 251). Only 32 ARGs in the GBI are not included in the KBI. Among the 219 ARGs detected by both approaches, the ones with area differences of more than 20% account for about 32% (i.e., 70 ARGs). The mean downslope velocities of ARGs calculated from InSAR are between 2.8 and 107.4 mm∙a−1. Our comparative analyses show that ARGs mapping from the InSAR-based kinematic approach is more efficient and accurate than the geomorphic-based approach. Nonetheless, the completeness of the InSAR-assist KBI is affected by the SAR data acquisition time, signal decorrelation, geometric distortion of SAR images, and the sensitivity of the InSAR measurement to ground deformation. We suggest that the kinematic-based approach should be utilized in future ARGs-based studies such as regional permafrost distribution assessment and water storage estimates. Text permafrost MDPI Open Access Publishing Remote Sensing 13 23 4931 |
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topic |
rock glacier inventory surface deformation mountain permafrost |
spellingShingle |
rock glacier inventory surface deformation mountain permafrost Jiaxin Cai Xiaowen Wang Guoxiang Liu Bing Yu A Comparative Study of Active Rock Glaciers Mapped from Geomorphic- and Kinematic-Based Approaches in Daxue Shan, Southeast Tibetan Plateau |
topic_facet |
rock glacier inventory surface deformation mountain permafrost |
description |
Active rock glaciers (ARGs) are important permafrost landforms in alpine regions. Identifying ARGs has mainly relied on visual interpretation of their geomorphic characteristics with optical remote sensing images, while mapping ARGs from their kinematic features has also become popular in recent years. However, a thorough comparison of geomorphic- and kinematic-based inventories of ARGs has not been carried out. In this study, we employed a multi-temporal interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technique to derive the mean annual surface displacement velocity over the Daxue Shan, Southeast Tibet Plateau. We then compiled a rock glacier inventory by synergistically interpreting the InSAR-derived surface displacements and geomorphic features based on Google Earth images. Our InSAR-assist kinematic-based inventory (KBI) was further compared with a pre-existing geomorphic-based inventory (GBI) of rock glaciers in Daxue Shan. The results show that our InSAR-assist inventory consists of 344 ARGs, 36% (i.e., 125) more than that derived from the geomorphic-based method (i.e., 251). Only 32 ARGs in the GBI are not included in the KBI. Among the 219 ARGs detected by both approaches, the ones with area differences of more than 20% account for about 32% (i.e., 70 ARGs). The mean downslope velocities of ARGs calculated from InSAR are between 2.8 and 107.4 mm∙a−1. Our comparative analyses show that ARGs mapping from the InSAR-based kinematic approach is more efficient and accurate than the geomorphic-based approach. Nonetheless, the completeness of the InSAR-assist KBI is affected by the SAR data acquisition time, signal decorrelation, geometric distortion of SAR images, and the sensitivity of the InSAR measurement to ground deformation. We suggest that the kinematic-based approach should be utilized in future ARGs-based studies such as regional permafrost distribution assessment and water storage estimates. |
format |
Text |
author |
Jiaxin Cai Xiaowen Wang Guoxiang Liu Bing Yu |
author_facet |
Jiaxin Cai Xiaowen Wang Guoxiang Liu Bing Yu |
author_sort |
Jiaxin Cai |
title |
A Comparative Study of Active Rock Glaciers Mapped from Geomorphic- and Kinematic-Based Approaches in Daxue Shan, Southeast Tibetan Plateau |
title_short |
A Comparative Study of Active Rock Glaciers Mapped from Geomorphic- and Kinematic-Based Approaches in Daxue Shan, Southeast Tibetan Plateau |
title_full |
A Comparative Study of Active Rock Glaciers Mapped from Geomorphic- and Kinematic-Based Approaches in Daxue Shan, Southeast Tibetan Plateau |
title_fullStr |
A Comparative Study of Active Rock Glaciers Mapped from Geomorphic- and Kinematic-Based Approaches in Daxue Shan, Southeast Tibetan Plateau |
title_full_unstemmed |
A Comparative Study of Active Rock Glaciers Mapped from Geomorphic- and Kinematic-Based Approaches in Daxue Shan, Southeast Tibetan Plateau |
title_sort |
comparative study of active rock glaciers mapped from geomorphic- and kinematic-based approaches in daxue shan, southeast tibetan plateau |
publisher |
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13234931 |
op_coverage |
agris |
genre |
permafrost |
genre_facet |
permafrost |
op_source |
Remote Sensing Volume 13 Issue 23 Pages: 4931 |
op_relation |
Remote Sensing Image Processing https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs13234931 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13234931 |
container_title |
Remote Sensing |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
23 |
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4931 |
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