Mass balance processes on glaciers in the Khumbu-Himal (Nepal) based on Pléiades tri-stereo data

In the presented study, we are using Pléiades tri-stereo data to analyse mass balance related processes on several debris-covered glaciers in the Khumbu-Himal region of Nepal. A focus is placed on the important but until now unquantified role of avalanche snow and the influence of rock debris cover on the glacier tongues and the ablation at exposed ice fliffs within the debris. High resolution digital terrain models will be extracted photogrammetrically from the Pléiades scenes, while the optical information will be used for pixel- and object-based surface classification in order to map surface features such as progrlacial lakes, avalance cones and ice-cliffs.