Advances in Remote Sensing Technology and the Three Poles

14 Applications of ICESat-2 Photon Data in the Third Pole Environment

Giribabu Dandabathula^*

Regional Remote Sensing Centre (West), NRSC, Indian Space Research Organization, Jodhpur, India ^* Corresponding author

14.1 Introduction

Elevation information plays a significant role in scientific inquiry about the Earth and its associated processes by enabling interpretation of the data in a 3D framework, especially when the landscape of the study area contains rugged or irregular topography (National Research Council, 2010). Topography influences the Earth’s surface processes that include geology, hydrology, climatology, and human settlement patterns (Wallace, 1881; Xiao et al., 2018; Palazzi et al., 2019; Rocha et al., 2020).

The Himalayas, a large mountain belt, are the result of topographic expression from the interplay of tectonics activities, climatic fluctuation, and Earth surface processes (Lamb and Watts, 2010; Champagnac et al., 2012). The Himalayas host some of the highest mountain peaks on Earth, where snow and icy environmental conditions rival those existing in the polar regions and thus the region is termed as “the third pole,” “water tower of Asia,” and “the roof of the world” (Bahadur, 1993; Bandhyopadhyay, 2013; Yao et al., 2020). The Himalayan region influences the “ice-water-air-ecosystem-energy-human” interactions on most parts of the South Asian countries as it contains numerous glaciers, peaks, valleys, and is the origin of major river systems (Vemsani, 2015; ...