10 July 2010
Attabad – the lake level has apparently risen again
Posted by Dave Petley
Interesting developments at Attabad, as various press reports suggest that the lake level increased substantially once again yesterday. The Pamir Times for example reports that the lake level went up by 11 inches (28 cm) yesterday; this magnitude of increase is reported elsewhere too. I have used the data and the graph in the NDMA daily reports to build a dataset of the lake level with time:
If these reports of an 28 cm increase are true then the lake level is probably very close to the previous maximum level. Any further increases could of course lead to more losses upstream, and increase the potential energy stored behind the dam. This increase in lake level is interesting though because at the same time the reported outflows have declined from those of a week or so ago. The estimated spillway flow graph is as follows. I have assumed that the seepage rate has remained constant, and there is a considerable uncertainty in these media reported values:
The resulting relationship between the lake depth and the spillway flow is shown below. For clarity I have plotted the five most recent points as open diamonds:
It is not clear to me as to why the spillway discharge has declined even though the lake level has increased. There are a number of possible explanations, but it t is difficult to speculate with so little information and no images, and so at this stage I will not do so.
Meanwhile the Pamir Times also reports that there were 13 large rockfall events yesterday, some of which created waves on the lake. Secondly, a rather strange report in The News says that “…construction of road leading to Attabad lake is underway. Deputy Commissioner Hunza Nagar Zafar Waqar Taj told Geo News that the construction of road will be completed within a week followed by installation of a floating bridge through which five big trucks will be pass at a time. It will make possible transportation of goods in huge quantity between Pakistan and China and swift delivery of relief items to upper Hunza Gojal affectees.” That is an intriguing possibility, involving a major development over a very short period of time. I cannot quite work out what is meant by this!
dave, this is south asia.. where the left hand does not know what the right one is doing..u will have as many comments as there are officers and none of them will make any sense whatso ever.. what good is an officer if there is no comment ascribed to him.
Military tactics
The obvious reason for the seepage rate to decrease would be that the landslide dam is compacting thereby reducing the seepage.
Dave,I remember reading somewhere that the recent Indian Ocean Tsunami and Haiti earthquakes were created by some technology and were not natural. Though I would not subscribe to these conspiracy theories unless proven, I need you to enlighten us on this.The association is headquartered somewhere in UK.
Please read this.http://www.voltairenet.org/article163729.html
^^ IvanWhat kind of rude comment is that? Many knowledgeable and [i]decent[/i] people comment on this blog of Dr. Dave, if some comments doesn't make sense to you, either don't reply to them, or refute politely as many [i]respectful[/i] (worthy!?) people have been doing for last so many months… keep your rude language to yourself and do not annoy all the readers.Thank you
Hi there,without judging about the content of that link above I just have to announce, that executing the embedded flash video caused my Virus scanner for an alarm regarding a script virus. So if you follow that link please be careful!
I don't even bother replying to people hiding behind anonymous posting
Excellent blog.Fancy the content I have seen so far and I am your regular reader of your blog.I am very much interested in adding http://daveslandslideblog.blogspot.com/ in my blog http://nasa-satellites.blogspot.com/ .I am pleased to see my blog in your blog list.I would like to know whether you are interested in adding my blog in your blog list.Hope to see a positive reply. Thanks for visiting my blog as well !Waiting for your reply friend !!!!!
One possible explanation for the declining outflow would be that the spillway is becoming clogged up by floating debris.