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Acceleration of thaw slump during 1997–2017 in the Qilian Mountains of the northern Qinghai-Tibetan plateau

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Abstract

Climate warming increases thermokarst landscapes and thus leads to land degradation in the Circum-Arctic regions. Thermokarst landscapes were estimated to cover ~ 20% of the northern permafrost region, and their development is related to ground ice content and topographic conditions. However, changes in thaw slump distribution and development in mid- to low-latitude permafrost areas largely remain unknown. Here, we selected the Qilian Mountains of the northern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) as the study area. Combined with field investigation to measure the boundary of thaw slump using Real Time Kinematic (RTK), we analyzed historical changes in thaw slumps using 1969 and 1997 aerial photographs, 2009 and 2015 satellite imagery, and 2017 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) aerial images. The results showed that there are 15 thaw slumps covering an area of 0.03 km2, which were mainly distributed in terrain with a slope of 2–8° and elevation of 3552–3611 m. For the time periods of 1997–2009, 2009–2015, and 2015–2017, the average increase rates of thaw slump areas were approximately 61.8, 60.0, and 156.8 m2/y, and annual headwall retreat rates were approximately 1.3, 1.6 and 2.0 m/y. Based on the slopes, aspects, and altitudes from the Digital Elevation Model generated by UAV imagery, it suggested that geomorphic factors have no significant effect on the growth rates of thaw slump due to high heterogeneities of alpine environments. Our results showed that thaw slumps with polycyclic and active characteristics covered at least 0.9% of northern QTP permafrost regions and are expected to rapidly accelerate with climate warming.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDA20100313, XDA20100103), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41871050; 41801028), and Open Foundations of the State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering (Grant No. SKLFSE201705).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Cuicui Mu, Tingjun Zhang, Chengyan Fan, Shufa Wang, Xiaoqing Peng, Wen Zhong, Feng Zhang, Mei Mu & Lin Jia

  2. University Cooperation of Polar Research, Beijing, 100875, China

    Cuicui Mu & Tingjun Zhang

  3. Key Laboratory of Near Surface Detection Technology, Wuxi, 214035, China

    Jianguo Shang

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  1. Cuicui Mu
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  2. Jianguo Shang
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  4. Chengyan Fan
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  6. Xiaoqing Peng
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  7. Wen Zhong
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Correspondence to Cuicui Mu or Tingjun Zhang.

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Mu, C., Shang, J., Zhang, T. et al. Acceleration of thaw slump during 1997–2017 in the Qilian Mountains of the northern Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. Landslides 17, 1051–1062 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-020-01344-3

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