Chinese researchers have completed a comprehensive inventory of rock glaciers across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, identifying 132,867 features over an area covering approximately 16,500 square kilometers. This represents the most extensive catalog of its kind for the region and surpasses the total number of rock glaciers previously documented worldwide.
Rock glaciers are periglacial landforms composed of ice-rich debris that gradually move downhill in cold mountainous environments. While glaciers are commonly recognized as the primary components of the plateau’s cryosphere, this new study highlights that rock glaciers constitute a significant, yet previously underestimated, portion of the area’s frozen water reserves.
The study, led by Feng Min of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was published recently in Science Bulletin. The research team utilized a combination of high-resolution optical remote sensing imagery, radar data, and digital elevation models to develop a deep-learning method for detecting rock glaciers automatically across the difficult terrain of the plateau. They applied multi-temporal radar techniques to measure surface deformation rates, successfully obtaining motion data for 99.3 percent of the identified rock glaciers.
The inventory provides detailed information beyond location and boundaries, including morphological classification, terrain characteristics, connectivity to glaciers, and current movement status. Feng and colleagues estimated that the amount of ice contained within these rock glaciers amounts to approximately 92 to 186 cubic kilometers—comparable to the capacity of dozens of large man-made reservoirs.
This finding points to a substantial solid-water reserve within the so-called “Asian Water Tower,” the term used for the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau due to its critical role in feeding major Asian river systems. The discovery of such extensive ice reserves in rock glaciers could have important implications for regional hydrology, particularly in areas where glaciers are retreating or absent.
Furthermore, the dataset offers valuable information for assessing geohazard risks associated with rock glaciers. Due to their slow but continuous movement, rock glaciers can cause ground deformation and potentially trigger hazards such as debris flows and river blockages when they intersect with infrastructure or river valleys. The inventory's documentation of spatial relationships between rock glaciers and roads or other structures provides a new tool for mountain hazard assessment.
Feng emphasized the significance of rock glaciers as indicators of mountain permafrost, noting that these features serve as natural markers of frozen ground in the plateau’s landscape. The publicly available dataset, released through the National Tibetan Plateau Data Center, is expected to aid ongoing monitoring of permafrost, improve assessments of water resources, contribute to cryosphere hazard identification, and support modeling of high-altitude surface processes. The study also provides a foundational baseline for future global evaluations of rock glacier distribution and ice storage in mountainous cold regions.