Intelligent energy and ecosystem for real-time monitoring of glaciers.

What is it about?

The United Nations is deeply concerned about global warming and its impacts on natural resources. Simultaneously, it has been recommended that cutting-edge technologies be employed to predict the impact of climate change on natural reservoirs such as glaciers. With the motivation of the above facts, this study investigates the impact and significance of emerging and cutting-edge technologies like Remote Sensing, the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and robots implementation for the digitalization in glaciers. The study identified that convergence of AI, Machine Learning (ML), and Deep Learning approaches with Spatio-temporal data empowers to detect non-linear characteristics, especially in high mountainous regions due to their diversity and unpredictable nature. The article suggested valuable recommendations such as establishing an intelligent eco-system in glaciers, low-cost intelligent IoT devices with intelligent energy algorithms, ML empowered edge devices, glacier-resistant rescue robots, and Wearable IoT-based safety guide devices.

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Why is it important?

the sustainable development goal ‘13′ is framed to minimize the upcoming cryosphere and ocean change [1]. Climate change and pollution are hastening the melting of Himalayan glaciers, threatening the lives and livelihoods of 750 million people who rely on the glaciers and snows for water [2]. The Indian Himalayan Mountain range contains one of the greatest collections of glaciers outside of the Polar Regions, with a total glacier area of 33,000 km2 and over 9600 glaciers [3]. Glacial melting deep in the Himalayas produced a flash flood in Uttarakhand, India, which killed dozens of people and wiped-out new dams and bridges [4]. To reduce catastrophes like Uttarakhand, adaptive measures such as global warming mitigation, early warning systems, and monitoring systems must be implemented. The assessment of global environmental change focuses on various factors such as atmosphere, ecosystem, air quality, water cycle, disaster, air temperature, chromospheres, biosphere, land, and ocean biogeochemical activities [5]. However, significant gaps in our understanding of climate change and its impact on human and ecological systems make it difficult to estimate and respond to future changes [6]. Glacier monitoring is of scientific importance because climate change research entails continuous monitoring of glacier characteristics, and monitoring the surface area and volume of particular glaciers has the potential to save the future of water supplies [7]. Earth observation (EO) and field-based approaches are often viewed as having the duty to achieve the sustainable development of mountain settlements. The convergence of IoT is currently being investigated to address crucial concerns such as climate change and geohazards for environmental sustainability [8].

Perspectives