63

Bulletin of Glaciological Research ,- (,**0) 0-ῌ01ῌJapanese Society of Snow and Ice

Topographical survey of July +st Glacier in Qilian Mountains, ChinaKoji FUJITA+, Akiko SAKAI+, Yoshihiro MATSUDA+, Chiyuki NARAMA+, Nozomu NAITO,,
Satoru YAMAGUCHI-, Kuniharu HIYAMA+, Jiancheng PU., Tandong YAO/and Masayoshi NAKAWO0+ Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya .0.ῌ20*+, Japan, Department of Environmental Information, Hiroshima Institute of Technology, Hiroshima 1-+ῌ/+3-, Japan- Nagaoka Institute of Snow and Ice Studies, National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, Nagaoka 3.*
ῌ*2,+, Japan. Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou 1-****, China/ Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P. O. Box ,21+, Beijing +***2/, China
0 Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto 0*,ῌ*212, Japan(Received October -, ,**/; Revised manuscript accepted November ., ,**/)

Abstract
In order to evaluate recent glacier shrinkage in the arid region of China, surveys using a global
positioning system (GPS) and digital theodolite with laser distance meter were carried out on the July+st glacier in the Qilian Mountains from ,**, to ,**/. Benchmarks and stakes on around the glacier
were installed in ,**,. A new ,**, map was carefully superposed on a map created in +31/ using asalient moraine ridge and boundary of the accumulation area, since no ground control point wasavailable in the old +31/ map. A retreat of the glacier termini has been detectable since +3/0 with anotable retreat occurring between ,**, and ,**-. Surface ﬂow velocities were obtained by repeatedmeasurements of a stake network. The new map and benchmarks provide basic information for future
survey studies.

+.

Introduction

Water from glaciers is signiﬁcant as water reservoirs, especially in the arid inland regions of China
such as the Taklimakan and Gobi Deserts (Kang et al.,+333). The Qilian Mountains are located on the northern fringe of the Tibetan Plateau (Fig. +) and hold ,2+/glaciers, occupying about +3-* km, (Tsvetkov et al.,+332). Glacier meltwater and more abundant precipitation in the mountains supply a fair amount of water tooases scattered across the huge desert area, where thescant precipitation cannot support human inhabitants(Ding and Kang, +32/; Kang et al., +333; Wang andChen, +333). The river discharge into the desert region
has been analyzed and estimated in the context ofwarming on the Tibetan Plateau (Kang et al., +33,;+333; Ye et al., +333; ,**-; Liu and Chen, ,***; Liu etal., ,**-). They concluded that the glacier shrinkage
derived from warming would increase water discharge brieﬂy since the glaciers lost their ice body as
redundant water. The amount of additional water andits persistent duration would depend on the scale,dynamics and change in mass balance of the glaciers.

Fig. +. Location of July +st glacier in Qilian Mountains (open circle).

Determining ﬂuctuations in a glacier is signiﬁcant,therefore, in evaluating its historical and future discharge together with its contribution to human lives
in a desert area.
The July +st Glacier is located in the westernregion of the Qilian Mountains (-3ῌ+/῍N, 31ῌ./῍E, Fig.
,). A map of the glacier based on aerial photographs
was made in +31/ (Xie et al., +32/a; included in Shi,

64

Bulletin of Glaciological Research+322). The length and area of the glacier in +31/ were-.2 km and ,.32 km,, respectively (Liu et al., +33,).
Based on that initial map, the thickness using thegravitational method (Su, +32/) and the glacier surface
ﬂow between +310 and +311 (Sun and Huang, +32/)
have been measured. In +32/, various studies such as aresurvey around the ablation area (Liu et al., +33,),
glacier ﬂow between +32. and +32/ (Song et al., +33,),
and internal ice temperature (Xie et al., +32/b) havebeen carried out. In order to determine the recent
condition of the glacier, we started meteorological,hydrological and glaciological observations in ,**,.
Preliminary results on meteorology (Sakai et al., ,**0a), glacial discharge (Sakai et al., ,**0b), and massbalance of the glacier (Matsuda et al., ,**.) were reported. Here summarize the preliminary results of asurvey in this report.

,.

theodolite with laser distance meter (SOKIA SET,+**)
have been carried out on/around the July +st glacier
since June ,**,, as summarized in Table +. Data processing of GPS measurements was performed using

Survey of July +st Glacier

Surveys by the di#erential Global Positioning
System (GPS, CMC Co., Ltd. All Star) and a digital

Fig. ,. Photograph of July +st glacier from the north(, September ,**-).

Fig. -. Map of July +st glacier. Crosses denote thebenchmarks installed in ,**, (BM-L+ and BM-R).
Glacier boundaries in +3/0 and +31/, contour lines
and moraine ridge of left bank are traced from a
original map surveyed in +31/ (Xie et al., +32/a).
Boundary of ,**, is drawn from GPS data. Dotsdenote stakes installed in ,**, for mass balanceand surface ﬂow measurements. Rhombus denotes
a rock on the glacier.

Table +. Surveys on/around the July +st glacier since ,**,. TS in method denotes
a digital theodolite with laser distance survey.
Season

MethodObservers

Markers

June +/ῌ,*, ,**,GPSKF

Boundaries, stakes, side moraines

Aug. -+ῌSep. 1, ,**,GPSYM

StakesAug. +/ῌSep. +-, ,**-TS

AS, WX, NN

Stakes, terminus

June +.ῌ+0, ,**.

TS

AS, WX

Stakes, terminus

July ,1ῌ,3, ,**.

GPSKF

Glacier, end moraine

Aug. -+ῌSep. ,, ,**.

TS

AS, WX, CN

Stakes, terminus

Sep. /, ,**.

GPSCN

End moraine

June ,0ῌJuly /, ,**/

GPS

KH

Terminus, end moraine

June ,1, ,**/TS

SY, KH

StakesAbbreviations for observers: KF, Koji Fujita; YM, Yoshihiro Matsuda; AS, Akiko
Sakai; WX, Wang Xinming; NN, Nozomu Naito; CN, Chiyuki Narama; KH, Kuniharu
Hiyama; SY, Satoru Yamaguchi.

Fujita et al.

65

Table ,. Locations of benchmarks and a rock on the glacier in the
Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate and the geodetic
coordinate with WGS2. (last line for BM-L+).
ObjectNorthing

Easting

Altitude

Date

BM-L+.-./-2,4,*-3,+*141.

.-.24**

ῌBM-R.-./3,04*--3+2014*1.-2241/

ῌRock.-./1,,412-3+/+043,...-42.

, Sep. ,**.

BM-L+-3῍+/ῌ.4+/1῎

31῍..ῌ/143,,῎.-.24**

ῌUnits of UTM coordinate and altitude are in meters.

Fig. .. Change in the terminus of July +st glacier
since +3/0. Cross denotes the benchmark (BM-L+).

GrafNav and GrafNet software (Waypoint). Relative
positions of all points were calculated on a system ofcoordinates with their origin at the benchmark on theleft bank moraine (BM-L+). Benchmarks, stakes, andglacier boundaries are shown in Fig. -. Locations ofbenchmarks and a rock on the glacier are shown in
Table , on the Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate with WGS2.. The position of BM-L+ was obtained as an average of a measurements repeatedseveral times, since absolute positions cannot be reliably measured by the GPS system. A rock located in
the mid-ablation area (solid rhombus in Figs. - and /)serves as a signiﬁcant marker on the glacier, and its
location will provide useful information for future
surveys.
Measurement errors in the survey were evaluatedby comparing the positions of the / benchmarks (considered to be immovable) installed around the glacier.
Standard deviations of di#erences (-, measurements)from the averages were obtained as measurement errors. Horizontal and vertical errors were within *.*1and *.+, m, respectively.
Figure - also shows the boundaries of the glacierin +3/0, +31/, and +32/ (Xie et al., +32/a; Liu et al., +33,).
Contour lines are those of +31/ (Xie et al., +32/a). Surveyed data were carefully superposed on the previous
maps by matching the glacier boundaries of the accumulation area and moraine ridge, since no groundcontrol point was available from the previous maps. AFig. /. New map of July +st Glacier. All GPS traces onthe glacier (gray dotted lines) and the end/side
moraines (gray broken lines) are used for drawing
contour lines (thin lines). Thick solid and dottedlines denote the boundary of the glacier in ,**,and +31/, respectively.

retreat history of the terminus since +3/0 is shown in
Fig. .. Retreat distances and rates of the terminus are
summarized in Table -. Dividing the ablated area by
the width around the terminus gives the retreat distance. Both the area and width are obtained from adetailed map (Fig. .). A remarkable retreat between,**, and ,**- was considered to be due to drastic
melting in the summer of ,**,. This phenomenon wassuggested by Sakai et al. (,**0a) based on the meteorological data.
A new map of the glacier was drawn based on all
the measurement data (Fig. /). Elevation of the glacier

66

Bulletin of Glaciological Research

Table -. Retreat distance and rate of the termini ofJuly +st Glacier since +3/0.
YearDuration(yr)

Retreat distance(m)

Retreat rate(m yrῌ+)+3024--40+*,04.

,40+1,/43+4/+,*4+,*4++*4**4*+/43/43+3/0+31/+32/,**,,**-,**.

determined by a single GPS survey will vary widelywith each measurement, the relative elevation fromthe benchmarks shown in Table , should be comparable in future surveys. This map and the benchmark
locations, therefore, will provide basic information for
future studies of ﬂuctuations in the glacier. A detailed
map of the area around the end moraine will be analyzed elsewhere in order to evaluate the shrinkage ofthe glacier since the Little Ice Age.
Surface ﬂow velocities were obtained by comparing the locations of stakes (Fig. 0). Decreasing surfacespeeds since the +31*s are explainable by thinning of
the glacier ice (Sakai et al., ,**0c). Seasonal changes inthe surface ﬂow speed, ice temperature, and thicknessof the glacier will be analyzed elsewhere.

,**/

Acknowledgments
The authors wish to express their gratitude to allmembers of the Project for their valuable support inthe ﬁeld observations. The ﬁeld research was funded
by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientiﬁc Research (Project No.
+.,*3*,*) from the Ministry of Education, Culture,Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. The data
analysis was funded by The Sumitomo Foundation.
This paper is a contribution to the Oasis Project (Historical evolution of adaptability in an oasis region towater resource changes) promoted by the ResearchInstitute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN).

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Fig. 0. Surface ﬂow velocities of July +st glacierbetween ,**. and ,**/. Circles denote original
positions of stakes installed in ,**,.

surface in the ,***s was lower by about /* m than thatin +31/, a di#erence apparently due to an elevation of
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from the older maps (Xie et al., +32/a; Liu et al., +33,).
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