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Recent Kyagar glacier lake outburst flood frequency in Chinese Karakoram unprecedented over the last two centuries

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Abstract

Kyagar glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) have long been a serious nature hazard in Yarkant river basins of the Chinese Karakoram, threatening more than one million people. Between 1810 and 2018, 34 Kyagar GLOF events have been recorded, of which 26 occurred from 1960 onwards and their occurrence frequency reaches at least three times in each decade. An early warning system established in 2011 has successfully predicted the Kyagar GLOF events in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, which provides an important reference for the monitoring and risk pre-evaluation of the GLOFs in Karakoram.

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Acknowledgements

Funding this work was Outstanding Youth Fund of Shandong Provincial Universities (ZR2016JL030) and the Natural Science Foundation of China (41576182 and 41830644).

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Correspondence to Yetang Wang.

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Yin, B., Zeng, J., Zhang, Y. et al. Recent Kyagar glacier lake outburst flood frequency in Chinese Karakoram unprecedented over the last two centuries. Nat Hazards 95, 877–881 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3505-7

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