Application of “OTSU”—an image segmentation method for differentiation of snow and ice regions of glaciers and assessment of mass budget in Chandra basin, Western Himalaya using Remote Sensing and GIS techniques

Gaddam, VK and Boddapati, R and Kumar, T and Kulkarni, AV and Bjornsson, H (2022) Application of “OTSU”—an image segmentation method for differentiation of snow and ice regions of glaciers and assessment of mass budget in Chandra basin, Western Himalaya using Remote Sensing and GIS techniques. In: Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 194 (5).

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Abstract

In this study, an image segmentation algorithm (�OTSU�) is applied for differentiation of snow/ice regions followed by interpretation of snowlines and estimation of mass budget of glaciers in Chandra basin, Western Himalaya, India between 2014 and 2020. The observations strongly suggest that the OTSU method can be used to differentiate the snow and ice regions on a glacier accurately from any satellite image, irrespective of the sensor characteristics. Also, this method suits well to delineate the snowlines for large sample of glaciers, other than the manual interpretation and semi-automated methods. The estimates of mass budget of the glaciers are observed varying from � 1.20 ± 0.51 m w.e to almost 0.64 ± 0.51 m w.e, with a total loss of � 61.91 ± 6.70 m w.e of ice mass at basin scale during the observation period. Based on this study, it is highly recommended the application of OTSU method for the differentiation of snow/ice zones of glaciers and snowline demarcation at a large spatial scale in the harsh weather rugged terrain of the Western Himalaya. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Environmental Monitoring and Assessment
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Additional Information:	The copyright for this article belongs to Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Keywords:	Budget control; Ice; Image segmentation; Remote sensing, Chandra; Chandrum basin; Himalayas; Mass balance; Mass budget; OTSU method; Snow and ice; Snow line demarcation; Snowline; Specific mass balance, Snow
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Divecha Centre for Climate Change
Date Deposited:	23 May 2022 05:51
Last Modified:	23 May 2022 05:51
URI:	https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/71749

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