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Application of “OTSU”—an image segmentation method for differentiation of snow and ice regions of glaciers and assessment of mass budget in Chandra basin, Western Himalaya using Remote Sensing and GIS techniques

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Abstract

In this study, an image segmentation algorithm (“OTSU”) is applied for differentiation of snow/ice regions followed by interpretation of snowlines and estimation of mass budget of glaciers in Chandra basin, Western Himalaya, India between 2014 and 2020. The observations strongly suggest that the OTSU method can be used to differentiate the snow and ice regions on a glacier accurately from any satellite image, irrespective of the sensor characteristics. Also, this method suits well to delineate the snowlines for large sample of glaciers, other than the manual interpretation and semi-automated methods. The estimates of mass budget of the glaciers are observed varying from − 1.20 ± 0.51 m w.e to almost 0.64 ± 0.51 m w.e, with a total loss of − 61.91 ± 6.70 m w.e of ice mass at basin scale during the observation period. Based on this study, it is highly recommended the application of OTSU method for the differentiation of snow/ice zones of glaciers and snowline demarcation at a large spatial scale in the harsh weather rugged terrain of the Western Himalaya.

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Acknowledgements

This work is a part of the Research work being carried by the second author and submitted for research degree at JNTUK. Corresponding author and second author would like to thank Chairman Shri Ravindranath Tagore, Dhanekula Institute of Technology, JNTU Kakinada and Dr. M. Ravichandran, Director NCPOR, Dr. Meloth Thamban, Group Director- Himalayan Cryosphere, NCPOR for the support provided during the study. All the Authors would like to thank USGS, JAXA, ISRO-NRSC, MOES-NCPOR for providing the datasets used for Research purpose. A special thanks to World data bank and CWC for providing the CRU climate datasets and Moorang meteorological observatory data. The contribution number of the publication is Dhan/Pub/Civ/GVK-04.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Dhanekula Institute of Engineering and Technology, JNTU, Kakinada, India

    Vinay Kumar Gaddam & Ramya Boddapati

  2. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Dhanekula Institute of Engineering and Technology, JNTU, Kakinada, India

    Tanooj Kumar

  3. Polar Sciences Group, ESSO-National Centre for Polar Sciences and Ocean Research, South Goa, Goa, India

    Vinay Kumar Gaddam

  4. DST Centre of Excellence, Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

    Anil V. Kulkarni

  5. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Helgi Bjornsson

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  1. Vinay Kumar Gaddam
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Gaddam, V.K., Boddapati, R., Kumar, T. et al. Application of “OTSU”—an image segmentation method for differentiation of snow and ice regions of glaciers and assessment of mass budget in Chandra basin, Western Himalaya using Remote Sensing and GIS techniques. Environ Monit Assess 194, 337 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-09945-2

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