Dissolved ion chemistry and suspended sediment characteristics of meltwater draining from Chhota Shigri Glacier, western
- PDF / 701,974 Bytes
- 13 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 23 Downloads / 173 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
Dissolved ion chemistry and suspended sediment characteristics of meltwater draining from Chhota Shigri Glacier, western Himalaya, India Virendra Bahadur Singh & AL. Ramanathan & Parmanand Sharma & Jose George Pottakkal
Received: 15 April 2013 / Accepted: 4 November 2013 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2013
Abstract Studies on dissolved ion chemistry and suspended sediment concentration of meltwater draining from Chhota Shigri Glacier were carried out in the year 2008 and 2009. The cationic and anionic concentrations follow the trend: Ca2+ > Mg2+ > Na+ > K+ and HCO3− > SO42− > Cl− > NO3− > PO43−, respectively. The higher ratios of (Ca + Mg)/ TZ+ and (Ca + Mg)/(Na + K); strong correlations between CaMg, Ca-HCO3 and Mg-HCO3; and low ratio of (Na + K)/TZ+ for both the years indicate that chemical characteristics of Chhota Shigri Glacier meltwater are mostly controlled by carbonate weathering followed by silicate weathering. The C ratio shows that dissolution and dissociation of atmospheric CO2 is the major proton producer for glacier meltwater. Statistical analysis was used to identify different factors controlling dissolved ions chemistry of study area. There have been marked seasonal and diurnal variations in the total dissolved solid (TDS) and suspended sediment concentration of glacier meltwater observed during the sampling periods. TDS of meltwater is high during October (low discharge) and low during August (high discharge) in both years, implying that TDS is inversely correlated with discharge. On the other hand, suspended sediment concentration is higher during August (high flow regime) and low during October (low flow regime) during the sampling periods, generally following the discharge pattern of the glacier.
V. B. Singh : A. Ramanathan (*) : J. G. Pottakkal School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India e-mail: [email protected] P. Sharma National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Goa, India
Keywords Meltwater chemistry . Weathering . Suspended sediment concentration . Seasonal and diurnal variations . Chhota Shigri Glacier . Western Himalaya
Introduction The Himalaya, located along the south of the Tibetan Plateau, runs about 200–300 km from south to north and 2,400 km from west to east with an average elevation of about 6,000 m (Liu et al. 2010). There are more than 12,000 glaciers found in the Himalaya (Kaul 1999; ICIMOD 2001) covering an area of about 33,000 km2 (Rai and Gurung 2005). Many rivers of Asia such as Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Huang He or Yellow River, Yangtze, Mekong and Salween are fed by the glaciers of Himalaya. Hence, Himalayan glaciers are considered among the most important glaciers in the world because they contribute significantly to the continental solute budget (Kumar et al. 2009). Discharge of water from Himalayan glaciers contributes significantly to the overall runoff of the Himalayan rivers (Immerzeel et al. 2010) and it is important for drinking water supply, irrigation and hydroelectric power generation (Si
Data Loading...
