Debris Flow Assessment in the Gaizi-Bulunkou Section of Karakoram Highway

Highways frequently run through the flow and accumulation areas of debris flow gullies and thus are susceptible to debris flow hazards. Assessing debris flows along highways can provide references for highway planners and debris flow control, emergency management. However, the existing assessment methods mostly neglect the essential information of the flow paths and spreading areas of debris flows at the regional scale. Taking the Gaizi Village-Bulunkou Township Section (hereinafter referred to as “the Gaizi-Bulunkou Section”) of the Karakoram highway as the study area, this research introduces a simple empirical model (the Flow-R model) and establishes a method for assessing the debris flow hazard level. The main processes include data collection, inventory of former events, calculating source areas and spreading probability, verification of the model, extraction of hazard assessment factors, and calculation of debris flow hazard levels. The results show that: 1) the accuracy, sensitivity, and positive predictive power of the Flow-R model in simulating the debris flow spreading probability of the study area were 81.87, 70.80 and 72.70%, respectively. The errors mainly occurred in the debris flow fans. 2) The calculation results make it possible to divide debris flow hazard levels into four levels. N5, N19, and N28 gullies had the highest hazard level during the study period. 3) In the Gaizi-Bulunkou Section of the Karakoram highway, during the study period, the highways with very high, high, medium, and low hazards were 4.33, 0.62, 1.41, and 1.68 km in length, respectively.

Kinematic and Rock Mass Classification Assessment of Road Cut Slopes along with Karakoram Highway in Northern, Pakistan

Karakoram highway (K.K.H.) the only road link between two countries China and Pakistan. This road network is essential for two countries due to its strategic location and socioeconomic. The highway is more vulnerable due to landslide disasters, especially in rain and snow melting seasons, and different kinds of mass movement activities have occurred along K.K.H., such as rockfall, debris flow, and snow avalanche. The slope stability problems are widespread along with Karakorum (K.K.H.) between Besham city and the Dasu area because of the high seismic zone, rainfall, snow melting, and complex geology slope geometry, week, and adverse discontinuities sets. The detailed fieldwork was done along the Karakorum highway to minimize the risk of slope stability and for planning purposes in Besham to Dasu area and selected nine road-cut slopes. However, in these nine selected roadcut slopes, three slopes were already failed, four slopes are partially stable, and two slopes were stable. Both kinematic and empirical approaches are applied on all these nine road cut slopes and their discontinuities. The kinematic result has shown that all kinds of mode failure such as Toppling, Planar, and Wedge failure mode occurred in these slopes. The RMRb result has shown that all discounters lie in between fair to good rock. Both discrete and continuous (S.M.R.) results show that all discontinuity sets lie between the unstable, partially stable, and stable conditions.

Glacier-Related Hazards Along the International Karakoram Highway: Status and Future Perspectives

The China–Pakistan international Karakoram Highway passes through the core area of the “Karakoram Anomaly,” whose glaciers have maintained or increased their mass during a period when most glaciers worldwide have receded. We synthesized the literature and used remote-sensing techniques to review the types, distribution, characteristics, causes and frequency of major glacial hazards along the Karakoram Highway. We found that the glacier-related hazards could be divided into direct and indirect hazards, including glacier surges, glacial lake outburst floods, and glacial floods, which are concentrated in East Pamir and the Hunza River Basin. In the past 100 years, hazards from glaciers surges and glacial floods only occurred once and twice, respectively, which appear suddenly, with the hazard-causing process being short-lived and occurring mainly in the summer. Glacial lake outburst floods mainly occur in the spring and summer in the Hunza River Basin. Among these, ice-dammed lakes have the highest frequency of flooding, their formation and outbursts being closely related to the sudden advancement of surge-type glaciers. Under the background of global climate warming, we speculate that the glacier surge cycle may shorten and the frequency of the formation and outbursts in the glacial lakes may increase. In the future, we should combine models and new field observations to simulate, and deepen our understanding of the physical mechanisms of different glacier-related hazards. In particular, on-site monitoring should be carried out, to include the evolution of glaciers subglacial hydrological systems, the thermal state at the base of the glaciers, and the opening and closing of drainage channels at the base of the ice dams.

Empirical assessment of rockfall and debris flow risk along the Karakoram Highway, Pakistan

The Karakoram Highway links north Pakistan with southwest China. It passes through unique geomorphological, geological and tectonic setting. This study focused 200-km-long section of the highway starting from Besham until Chilas. Landslides are frequent and are mostly triggered by torrential rain during Monsoon and Westerlies, leading to highway blockade. Rockfall and debris flow are prime mode of slope failures. Regional to site-specific approach was implemented to assess risk associated with these two modes. Remote sensing-based techniques were used to identify potential hazardous sites, which were further investigated for risk assessment. Modified Pierson’s rockfall hazard rating system (RHRS) rated potential rockfalls, whereas semi-quantitative technique was employed to assess debris flows. Normalized scores of each site shaped the final map, further classified into four zones: very high, high, intermediate and low risk.

Geospatial Analysis and Simulation of Glacial Avalanche Hazard in Hunza River Basin

Glacial avalanche hazard poses threat to human lives and damage settlements / infrastructures in alpine glaciers mountainous regions. A gigantic ice plus rock avalanche destroyed Gyari military camp in Siachen sector on April 2012 and buried 139 personals. The study focuses on geospatial analysis and simulation of Shishper glacial avalanche of Hunza basin. To simulate the potential glacial avalanche hazard to Hassan Abad settlements, an empirical process based Glacier Avalanche Model; Rapid Access Mass Movement Simulation (RAMMS) is utilized. The model encompasses avalanche release area and height for the execution of simulation. The model output of Shishper glacial avalanche resulted; a max pressure of 450 Kpa, max velocity of 40 m/s, and the max flow height of 80m, while the resulted surge extent output was 2500m. The potential hazardous Shishper glacial avalanche remains a continuous hazard to Hassan Abad of Hunza valley including Karakoram Highway and Frontier Works Organization (FWO) camp. The study has resulted in identifying the Upper Indus Bain (UIB) being more prone to glacial avalanche hazards because of host factors in general and the anthropogenic factor in particular.

Impact of Karakoram Highway on the Education and Health Development of Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan

Education is the soul of a society. It is a long term investment by a state to develop its human capital. Those countries which invested heavily in human development are reaping the benefits. Education and health as indicators of human development are of utmost importance. Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) in the extreme north of Pakistan is a mountainous area. Before the construction of Karakoram Highway (KKH), their status of education and health was extremely miserable. Only 3 middle and 80 primary schools were available in the entire area of Gilgit-Baltistan. Similarly, 2 hospitals and 10 small dispensaries were available in the health sector. Therefore, this study is an effort to evaluate the impact of KKH on education and health development of Gilgit-Baltistan. Results show a significant change and development, especially in the education sector. However, in the health sector, there is an intense need for more investment. As the area of Gilgit-Baltistan is vast and scattered, the people face difficulties in reaching the health care centres.