Dear Dr Kargel
Let me give you a brief description about the glacier in Iran.
In Iran 60% of water resource for using in urbanism, industries and agriculture are based
on natural glaciers, so in the case of water resource management glacier plays an
important role. Iran is dry land; therefore frequent investigations about glaciers are
important and necessary. Hence, research and study on glaciers are one of the priorities in
Iranian Ministry of Energy. Glacier Research Centre in the Faculty of Geodesy and
Geomatics engineering in KNT University is a unique centre in Iran where emphasizing
in research on glacier using Remote sensing technology. The head of the centre is Mr.
Fariborz Vaziri who has spent his life on research about Iranian glaciers since 1983 (He
is now in Alam-Chal glacier in the north part of the country). 5 main glacier zones are
identified by Fariborz Vaziri listed as below briefly:
GLACIER ZONE
Takht –Soleyman in Mazandaran province
Glaciers located around Damavand summit in Tehran province
Sabalan region in Ardebil province
Oshtoran-kuh zone in Lorestan province
Zard-kuh zone in Chahar mahal province
lat
o
36
35 o
38 o
33 o
32 o
22
57
16
20
22
long
50 o 57
52 o 06
47 o 50
49 o 18
50 o 04
The mentioned Glaciers are important and relatively vast glacier of Iran. Also there are
smaller glaciers on the other part of Iran. Zard-kuh glacier is different from other aspects
because of its geological structure which is karstic but others have a granite structure.
Concerning the five important glacial zones which play an important role as ice resources
and source of fresh water supply in Iran, the following studies have been carried out in
our research centre:
Field working and investigations on permanent snowy zones.
Determination of the locations and their overall dimensions and an introductory map
Determination of physical features like area, perimeter...
Study on the hydrology of river basins which are fed by Glaciers.
Taking photos and slides; and in other words documenting the Glaciers of Iran.
Using satellite images for investigation about glaciers
We have started the investigation on Alam-chal glacier (Takht-Soleyman glacier zone) as
the first case study using satellite images since 2002. In this research LANDSAT and IRS
images have been tested. Our current research is continuing the investigation using other
satellite images. In last 2003, we started the investigation on zard-kuh using LANDSAT
and ASTER images.
This research centre intends to extend these investigations to other glacier zones in Iran.
It would be very appreciated if you let me know your comments or concerns.
The deep Glacier valley (Glacier mouline)
in northern glacier; taekht solyman(alam kooh)
Sep 1995
IRS satellite image of Alam chal
June 2003