Correlation between environmental variables and slope movements in the Ala Archa catchment, Kyrgyzstan

In a time of increasing global warming and interconnected environmental changes, the assessment and detection of moving landforms are of growing importance for implementing successful adaptation and mitigation strategies concerning geohazards. Understanding the factors and processes governing slope movements, as well as their annual and seasonal variability, is of crucial significance. In recent years, advances in remote sensing applications and the availability of satellite data have been made, leading to an increased use of remotely sensed data for hazard monitoring and detection. Additionally, the use of machine learning enables the application of these methods to larger areas. Here, we concentrate on the Ala Archa catchment in Kyrgyzstan (Central Asia), located approximately 40 kilometres south of the capital city Bishkek, with a long history of glacier monitoring at Golubin Glacier.

This study aims to identify the predominant environmental factors influencing slope movements within the Ala Arch catchment and investigates the contribution of variations in environmental conditions to annual fluctuations in slope movement. We first present an average velocity map for the area of interest using InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) with Sentinel-1 data from both ascending and descending orbits between 2018 and 2023. The data is processed using ISCE (InSAR Scientific Computing Environment) and MintPy (Miami InSAR Time-series software in Python). Additionally, we use statistical modelling to estimate the influence of selected environmental variables such as relief, permafrost distribution, vegetation cover and landform classification. To determine the influence on seasonal/annual variations, we incorporate fluctuating variables like air temperature, precipitation and the duration of snow cover. In a final step, we examine how the identified relationships can be applied to generate an upscaled regional susceptibility map for slope movement.

In conclusion, our objective is to demonstrate the potential use of openly available satellite data for detecting hazardous or moving areas in regions where in-situ measurements are impractical or the necessary resources are unavailable.