Modelling outburst floods from moraine-dammed glacial lakes

Westoby, Matt, Glasser, Neil, Brasington, James, Hambrey, Michael, Quincey, Duncan and Reynolds, John (2014) Modelling outburst floods from moraine-dammed glacial lakes. Earth-Science Reviews, 134. pp. 137-159. ISSN 0012-8252

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Abstract

In response to climatic change, the size and number of moraine-dammed supraglacial and proglacial lake systems have increased dramatically in recent decades. Given an appropriate trigger, the natural moraine dams that impound these proglacial lakes are breached, producing catastrophic Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs). These floods are highly complex phenomena, with flood characteristics controlled, in the first instance, by the style of breach formation. Downstream, GLOFs typically exhibit transient, often non-Newtonian fluid dynamics as a result of high rates of sediment entrainment from the dam structure and channel boundaries. Combined, these characteristics introduce numerous modelling challenges. In this review, the historical, contemporary and emerging approaches available to model the individual stages, or components, of a GLOF event are introduced and discussed.

A number of methods exist to model the stages of a GLOF event. Dam-breach models can be categorised as being empirical, analytical or numerical in nature, with each method having significant advantages and shortcomings. Empirical relationships that produce estimates of peak discharge and time to peak are straightforward to implement, but the applicability of these models is often limited by the nature of the case study data from which they are derived. Furthermore, empirical models neglect the inclusion of basic hydraulic principles that describe the mechanics of breach formation. Analytical or parametric models simulate breach development using simplified versions of the physically based equations that describe breach enlargement, whilst complex, physically-based codes represent the state-of-the-art in numerical dam-breach modelling. To date, few of the latter have been applied to investigate the moraine-dam failure problem.

Despite significant advances in the physical complexity and availability of higher-order hydrodynamic solvers, the majority of published accounts that have attempted to reconstruct or predict GLOF characteristics have been limited, often by necessity, to the use of relatively simplistic models. This is in part attributable to the unavailability of terrain models of many high-mountain catchments at the fine spatial resolutions required for the effective application of numerically-sophisticated codes, and their proprietary (and often cost-prohibitive) nature. However, advanced models are experiencing increasing use in the glacial hazards literature. In particular, the suitability of emerging mesh-free, particle-based methods for simulating dam-breach and GLOF routing may represent a solution to many of the challenges associated with modelling this complex phenomenon.

Sources of uncertainty in the GLOF modelling chain have been identified by various workers. However, to date their significance for the robustness of reconstructive and predictive modelling efforts have been largely unexplored and quantified in detail. These sources include the geometric and material characterisation of moraine dam complexes, including lake bathymetry and the presence and extent of buried ice, initial conditions (freeboard, precise spillway dimensions), spatial discretisation of the down-valley domain, hydrodynamic model dimensionality and the dynamic coupling of successive components in the GLOF model cascade.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF), Moraine dam, Dam-breach modelling, Hydrodynamic modelling
Subjects:	F800 Physical and Terrestrial Geographical and Environmental Sciences
Department:	Faculties > Engineering and Environment > Geography and Environmental Sciences
Depositing User:	Becky Skoyles
Date Deposited:	12 Dec 2018 14:45
Last Modified:	11 Oct 2019 15:15
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/37208

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