Researchers from the University of Milan, in collaboration with the University of Cagliari, have created “The new inventory of 13,032 glaciers in Pakistan: the ‘Glaciers and Students’ project,” cataloguing over 13,000 glaciers in Pakistan using satellite images from the European Space Agency and advanced remote sensing techniques.
This inventory is the main result of the Italy-Pakistan Cooperation project “Glaciers and Students,” funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), executed by the UNDP (United Nations Development Program), and implemented by EvK2CNR, with the University of Milan and the University of Cagliari as scientific coordinators.
The inventory was officially presented on May 15 and 16, 2024, in Islamabad by the president of EvK2CNR, Agostino da Polenza, EvK2CNR Project Manager Maurizio Gallo, and UNIMI researcher Davide Fugazza to the Prime Minister of Pakistan’s delegate for climate change and environmental coordination, Ms. Romina Khurshid Alam, and the Italian ambassador to Pakistan, Marilina Armellin. The “Glaciers and Students” project involved hundreds of students from both Italy and Pakistan, who participated in various training sessions both in Pakistan and remotely on topics such as glaciology, geographic information systems, and remote sensing, contributing significantly to the creation of the glacier inventory.
Through the inventory, researchers estimated a total glacial area of 13,547 km² for Pakistan’s glaciers, making them an invaluable water resource for the country and beyond, as glacial meltwater primarily feeds the Indus River. Alongside many small glaciers with an area of less than 1 km², the country hosts some giants like the Baltoro Glacier, the largest glacier in Pakistan and one of the largest outside the polar regions, with an area exceeding 750 km². Several field campaigns were also conducted on the Baltoro Glacier and in the Hunza Valley glaciers during the summers of 2022 and 2023, involving both Italian and Pakistani personnel to install a meteorological monitoring network. This network observes key meteorological variables (including air temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and direction), which will enable future estimates of climate change impact in the region and measure glacier melt.
The inventory volume describes the glaciers within their respective watersheds, providing an essential contribution to water resource management; it also details the dimensional and topographic characteristics of the glaciers and includes a location map. Through a QR code, the online version of the inventory is accessible, offering free access to the database containing data on each glacier (https://geoportal.mountaingenius.org/sharemaps/basinmap.html).
The volume is complemented by general information on Italian research in Pakistan, the project’s cooperation aspects, the meteorological monitoring network installed on the glaciers, the general characteristics of the glaciers, and a comparison with previous inventories. The comparison reveals that glaciers in the Karakoram mountain range are relatively stable, showing a different behavior from most of the world’s glaciers (a phenomenon known as the “Karakoram anomaly”). In the Himalayas, a 16% glacial retreat was observed over about 20 years in the Palas River basin; in the Hindukush, the abundance of debris-covered glaciers complicates comparisons, as their identification is generally challenging and even more so in past inventories due to the lack of detailed satellite images like those used in “Glaciers and Students.” Thanks to the methodological improvements implemented in the new inventory, more detailed analyses will be possible in these areas in the future.