Gaikwad, D., Tyagi, A., & Tiwari, R. K. (2024). Assessing GLOF Hazards in the Himalayas: A Hybrid FR-AHP Approach to Susceptibility Mapping. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, 101437

Glacial lakes in the Himalayan region have triggered numerous glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), leading to extreme flash floods and extensive destruction. Therefore, identifying hazardous glacial lakes is essential for sustainable development and protecting downstream populations. This study focuses on GLOF susceptibility mapping (GLOFSM) of glacial lakes by combining the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and frequency ratio (FR) methods across the entire Himalayan region. The hybrid FR-AHP model reduces the number of subjective opinions and incorporate data-driven knowledge, hence, enhancing the accuracy of the GLOFSM. Based on 25 historical GLOF events, this method assigns weights to twelve selected factors and their subclasses, including lake area, glacier area, mean slope of the lake, mean slope of the glacier, lake aspect, elevation, average SLA angle, dam height, avalanche risk, lake–glacier distance, precipitation, and temperature. The results revealed that the size of the lake has the greatest influence on the GLOFSM, followed by glacier size and dam height. In addition, of the 851 mapped glacial lakes, 324 were classified as highly hazardous, and 50 were classified as very highly hazardous in the region. Finally, we verified the accuracy of the generated GLOF susceptibility map via the area under the curve (AUC) model, which yielded a remarkable accuracy of 86.65%. Overall, these studies encourage the regular monitoring of hazardous glacial lakes and the planning of effective mitigation strategies to reduce the risk of glaciated river basins