Webinar Link

Meeting No: 2520 144 8934
Password: geography

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Abstract

Glacier hazards are becoming an increasing concern in mountain regions due to climate change, glacier retreat, and the growing instability of glacial lakes and ice masses. These hazards, including glacial lake outburst floods, avalanches, and ice collapses, pose serious risks to communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems. In this webinar the panelists will deliberate on the current status of glacier hazard studies, recent scientific advancements, monitoring techniques, risk assessment, and early warning systems.

Short Bios

Dr. Saurabh Vijay

Dr. Saurabh Vijay is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, Geospatial Engineering/Geomatics Engineering Group, at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, India. His areas of interest include Remote Sensing, Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR), Glaciology, Earth Surface Deformation, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and Geodesy.

He has previously served as Principal Investigator at the Byrd Polar & Climate Research Center, USA, completed postdoctoral research at DTU Space, Technical University of Denmark, and worked as a Visiting Researcher at AWI Bremerhaven, Germany. He has also served as a Lecturer at Jaipur Engineering College, Rajasthan. His achievements include the Outstanding Student Presentation Award at the EGU General Assembly, Austria (2015), the IIT Master Sandwich Scholarship awarded by DAAD, Germany (2011), and the MHRD Fellowship from the Government of India (2010). He is a member of the International Glaciological Society and the European Geosciences Union.

Dr. Vijay holds a Ph.D. in Remote Sensing of Glaciers (Geography) from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany (2017), an M.Tech. in Geomatics Engineering from IIT Roorkee (2012), and a B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the University of Rajasthan (2008).

Dr. Jakob Friedrich Steiner

Dr. Jakob Friedrich Steiner is Senior Environmental Engineer at University of Graz, Graz, Austria. He is also a Senior Environmental Engineer at hydrosolutions, a visiting scientist at GLOMOS/UNU Bonn, and a fellow at the Asian Mountain Academic Alliance. His work primarily centers on mountain hydrology, the cryosphere, and high-altitude geohazards. He specializes in assessing water resource risks, debris-covered glaciers, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), and ice/rock avalanches. His field research heavily covers high-altitude environments such as High Mountain Asia (Nepal, Pakistan) and Greenland. He completed his MSc in Environmental Engineering at ETH Zurich and holds a PhD (2021) from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Dr. Pascal Emanuel Egli

Dr. Pascal Emanuel Egli id Associate Professor, at NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. He has work experience in natural hazards engineering, including hydraulic modelling in 1D and 2D.Pascal has done glaciology fieldwork on several Alpine glaciers in the Swiss Alps, on Norwegian glaciers, on outlet glaciers of the Northern Patagonian Ice Sheet in Chile, on surge-type glaciers in Pakistan, on natural hazards in Uganda as well as in the Nepal Himalayas, using methods such as Ground Penetrating Radar, hot water drilling, UAV photogrammetry, tracer experiments, installation of sensors and meteo stations, and dGPS. Pascal Egli has a PhD in Geography from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland ("ice-marginal subglacial channels and their relationship to the rapid retreat of temperate Alpine glaciers", 2022), and a Master degree of Environmental Engineering (Water Resources Management and Hydraulic Design) from ETH Zurich (2014), with a thesis on the topic of Large Eddy Simulations for urban canopies.

Dr. Shalini Sharma

Shalini Sharma is an Associate Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IISER Pune where she also heads the Science Media Centre. She focuses on cities, culture, and environment relations. Her current research/teaching focuses on two key areas: a) Disaster studies and environmental justice b) Media studies and Science Communication.

Dr. Sharma is interested in learning what knowledges are crucial for sustainable communities, and how these knowledges can be applied for building resilience and adaptive capacities of people/public policy. She has contributed to IPCC AR6, WG-II on cities and settlements. This drew on her work as Assistant Professor at TISS Guwahati in Northeast India and her postdoctoral research on indigenous urbanisms and climate change. She was a Commonwealth and Fulbright Fellow at the University of East Anglia and Princeton, respectively, during 2018-2020. She was selected by the UNESCO Climate Change Education Office in Paris for training on national curriculum and strategic planning towards climate education goals. However, she enjoys teaching the most. In 2022, she received IISER Pune’s Excellence in Teaching Award. She has a PhD in Development Studies from SOAS, University of London as a Felix Fellow.