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Characteristics and changes of glacial lakes and outburst floods

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Global glacier mass loss has accelerated, producing more and larger glacial lakes. Many of these glacial lakes are a source of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), which pose threats to people and infrastructure. In this Review, we synthesize global changes in glacial lakes and GLOFs. More than 110,000 glacial lakes currently exist, covering a total area of ~15,000 km2, having increased in area by ~22% dec–1 from 1990 to 2020. More than 10 million people are exposed to the impacts of GLOFs, commonly associated with dam failure or wave overtopping associated with mass movements. Although data limitations are substantial, more than 3,000 GLOFs have been recorded from 850 to 2022, particularly in Alaska (24%), High Mountain Asia (HMA; 18%) and Iceland (19%), the majority (64.8%) being from ice-dammed lakes. Recorded GLOFs have increased in most glaciated mountain regions of the world, with ongoing deglaciation and lake expansion expected to increase GLOF frequency further. In HMA, GLOF hazards are projected to triple by 2100, but changes in other regions will likely be lower given topographic constraints on lake evolution. Future research should prioritize acquiring field data on lake and dam properties, producing globally coordinated multi-temporal lake mapping, and robust and efficient modelling of GLOFs for comprehensive hazard assessment and response planning.

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Fig. 1: Global distribution of glacial lakes and historical GLOFs.
Fig. 2: Methodology for quantifying glacial lake changes and impacts.
Fig. 3: Global and regional changes in glacial lake area.
Fig. 4: The triggers and mechanisms of GLOFs.
Fig. 5: Future formation and growth of glacial lakes and GLOF hazard.
Fig. 6: Global potential future glacial lakes and GLOF hazard.

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Data availability

The global compilation of glacial lakes is available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25656531.

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Acknowledgements

This Review was supported by grants from the Basic Science Center for Tibetan Plateau Earth System (BSCTPES; NSFC project no. 41988101-03) and the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (2019QZKK0201). The authors thank W. Chen, Q. Tang and Y. Tang for their assistance in preparing figures and tables.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Guoqing Zhang, Jonathan L. Carrivick, Adam Emmer, Dan H. Shugar, Georg Veh.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Guoqing Zhang & Xue Wang

  2. School of Geography and water@leeds, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Jonathan L. Carrivick

  3. Institute of Geography and Regional Science, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Adam Emmer & Martin Mergili

  4. Water, Sediment, Hazards, and Earth-surface Dynamics (waterSHED) Laboratory, Department of Geoscience, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    Dan H. Shugar & Celeste Labedz

  5. Institute of Environmental Science and Geography, University of Potsdam, Potsdam-Golm, Germany

    Georg Veh & Natalie Lützow

  6. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xue Wang

  7. Enveo, Environmental Earth Observation Information Technology, Innsbruck, Austria

    Nico Mölg

  8. Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW), ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Matthias Huss

  9. Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    Matthias Huss

  10. Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

    Matthias Huss

  11. Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Simon Allen

  12. Institute for Environmental Science, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Simon Allen

  13. Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

    Shin Sugiyama

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Contributions

G.Z. and J.L.C. conceptualized the Review and coordinated inputs. D.H.S. and C.L. contributed to the Introduction. A.E., M.M. and N.M. contributed to the section on global and regional changes of lake size and abundance. G.V., J.L.C., S.S. and N.L. contributed to the section on historical glacial lake outburst floods. G.Z., M.H. and S.A. contributed to the section on future glacial lakes and outburst floods. G.Z., S.A. and J.L.C. contributed to the section on summary and future perspectives. X.W. contributed to some of the figures. G.Z. and J.L.C. led the writing, and all authors reviewed and edited the manuscript before submission.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Guoqing Zhang or Jonathan L. Carrivick.

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Zhang, G., Carrivick, J.L., Emmer, A. et al. Characteristics and changes of glacial lakes and outburst floods. Nat Rev Earth Environ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00554-w

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