Assessment of Glacier Hazards and Glacier Runoff for Different Climate Scenarios Based on Remote Sensing Data: A Case Study for Hydropower Plant in the Peruvian Andes (Proceedings of EARSeL-LISSIG-Workshop Observing our Cryosphere from Space

Within an interdisciplinary feasibility study for a hydropower plant in the Peruvian Andes, an as-sessment of glacier-related hazards and a simulation of future glacier and runoff scenarios were per-formed. Due to the remoteness of the study area, a remote sensing-based approach has proven to be the only feasible way. For the hazard assessment, an algorithm for glacier lake detection based on ETM+ data was applied. A potentially hazardous glacier lake was thus discovered, and ASTER data was then used to compute a digital elevation model (DEM). A lake outburst flood model, based on the DEM and hydrological flow modeling, indicated areas of different hazard potential. Though no direct hazard for the hydropower plant was found, a lake outburst could temporally dam the main river and thus cause a sudden extremely high discharge. For the simulation of scenarios of the fu-ture glacier area and runoff, a parameterization scheme was applied using basic glacier parameters. Calibration of the parameterization scheme was achieved by glacier parameters derived from ETM+ data. The glacier inventory of Peru from 1962 served as the basic data set. The simulation showed that with a continuing atmospheric warming trend the glacier area and volume will decrease very significantly. Glacier runoff, of great importance for the hydropower operation during the dry sea-son, is supposed to decrease almost completely in case of a temperature rise of 1.2°C. The study furthermore showed the large potential of ASTER data for deriving DEM’s and subsequent model-ing, particularly for remote areas