Classification of glacial lakes using integrated approach of DFPS technique and gradient analysis using Sentinel 2A data

It is important to identify and locate glacial lakes for assessing any potential hazard. This study presents a combination of semi-automatic method Double-Window Flexible Pace Search (DFPS) and edge detection technique to identify glacial lakes using Sentinel 2A satellite data. Initially, Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) has been used to identify water and non-water areas, while DFPS and Edge detection technique has been used to identify an optimum threshold value to distinguish between water and shadow areas. The optimal threshold from DFPS process is 0.21, while threshold value of gradient magnitude using edge detection process is 0.318. The number of glacial lakes identified using the above algorithm is in close agreement with previously published results on glacial lakes in Gangotri glacier using different techniques. Thus, a combination of DFPS and edge detection process has successfully segregated glacial lakes from other features present in Gangotri glacier.