Stuart Lane

University of Lausanne | UNIL · Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics

Investigating erosion and river sediment yield in high-mountain areas is crucial for understanding landscape and biogeochemical responses to environmental change. We compile data on contemporary fluvial suspended sediment yield (SSY) and 12 environmental proxies from 151 rivers in High Mountain Asia surrounding the Tibetan Plateau. We demonstrate t...

Proglacial forefields commonly include highly dynamic fluvial systems associated with the fundamental instability between topography, flow hydraulics and sediment transport. However, there is limited knowledge of how these systems respond to changing subglacial hydrology and sediment supply. We investigated this relationship using the first continu...

Measurement of river bathymetry has been revolutionized by high‐resolution remote sensing that combines UAV platforms with SfM‐MVS photogrammetry. Mapping inundated and exposed areas simultaneously are possible using either two‐media refraction correction or some form of the Beer–Lambert Law to estimate water depths. If, as in turbid glacially‐fed...

Hydrological modeling in alpine catchments poses unique challenges due to the complex interplay of meteorological, topographical, glaciological and streamflow generation factors. A significant issue arises from the limited availability of streamflow data due to the scarcity of high-elevation gauging stations. Consequently, there is a pressing need...

Glacio-hydrological models are widely used for estimating current and future streamflow across spatial scales, utilizing various data sources, notably streamflow and snow/ice observations. However, modeling highly glacierized catchments poses challenges due to data scarcity and complex spatio-temporal meteorological conditions, leading to input dat...

Emergency responders in coastal cities are anticipated to provide effective evacuation of at-risk populations during the preparedness and response phases of coastal floods due to land-falling storms or cyclones. However, existing contingency plans primarily focus on the evacuation of the general public rather than special arrangement for elderly po...

Alpine regions are among the areas that are the most intensely impacted by climate change. Predictions of how such changes affect meteorological conditions, as well as snow and ice cover and water discharge in mountain regions, are well established. However, how climate change has affected and will affect sediment transport in general and bedload t...

Recent developments in tree-ring research offer great potential for reconstructing past climate changes; determining the frequencies of natural hazards; and assessing the availability of freshwater resources over timescales that extend well into the pre-instrumental period. Here, we review the state of dendrochronological research in the Himalaya a...

Current approaches for deciding what science is covered in the media portray only a narrow slice of climate change research and aren’t well suited for stoking climate action.

River confluences influence the formation of secondary circulation, bed morphology, and associated feedbacks. With distance downstream through a drainage network, it becomes likely that the flow momentum of tributaries is lower than that of the main river, creating confluences with very low momentum ratio. However, the tributary may be able to supp...

Large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, have seen an explosion of interest over the last 12 months. It is hard to see an area of education and research where we are not having to face the challenge they pose, a form of artificial intelligence (AI) that is capable of generating text in response to relatively minimum prompting. The text genera...

Cross-domain interactions are an integral part of the success of biofilms in natural environments but remain poorly understood. Here, we describe cross-domain interactions in stream biofilms draining proglacial floodplains in the Swiss Alps. These streams, as a consequence of the retreat of glaciers, are characterised by multiple environmental grad...

Plain Language Summary Alpine glaciers have been retreating at increasing rates since the early 20th century due to the current climate warming. As a consequence, new, powerful and rapidly changing rivers have developed in the newly emerged terrain in front of shrinking glaciers (i.e., proglacial forefields). These environments are known to be amon...

We present a method for tracking radio-tagged pebbles and cobbles through subglacial meltwater channels under shallow temperate glaciers. Natural particles tagged with active radio transmitters were injected directly into a large subglacial channel 300 m up-glacier from the terminus of the Glacier d'Otemma, Switzerland. A roving antenna was develop...

Stream periphytons are candidate ecosystem engineers in proglacial margins. Here, we quantify the extent to which they are engineers for the case of hillslope-fed tributaries in the terrace zones of proglacial margin alluvial plains. Candidate ecosystem engineering effects relate to periphyton-driven changes in (1) vertical infiltration of water, w...

The Glacier d’Otemma proglacial margin, located in the Swiss Alps at an altitude of about 2450 m a.s.l. (45.93423 N, 7.41160 E), is characterized by a ca. 1 km long by 200 m wide active braided forefield. In this setting we installed two gauging stations for the monitoring of both suspended sediment and bedload transport within the proglacial margi...

Image collection strategies and ground control points (GCPs) are of particular importance for uncrewed aerial vehicle combined with Structure‐from‐Motion (UAV–SfM) photogrammetry, and the generalization of their effects has proved elusive. This study designed various photogrammetric scenarios to investigate the effects of image collection strategie...

Flume 3D Flow Velocities - Otemma Outdoor Flume Experiment (2021) We collected the 3D flow velocities with an Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (ADV), the Nortek Vectrino (VCN9421), supported by a sliding aluminum structure that allowed us to relocate the ADV precisely within the flumes. In each flume, we sampled the 3D velocities of 45 points, and we...

The way Alpine rivers mobilize, convey and store coarse material during high‐magnitude events is poorly understood, notably because it is difficult to obtain measurements of bedload transport at the watershed scale. Seismic sensor data, evaluated with appropriate seismic physical models, can provide that missing link by yielding time‐varying estima...

Rapid climate change is leading to global loss of snow and ice from the world's cryosphere and mountain glaciers. Of particular concern is the changing risk related to rapid melt of snow and ice, shrinking of glaciers, and eventual expansion and formation of new glacial lakes. If these breach then glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), potentially c...

We installed two parallel flumes (A and B) in the vicinity of the forefield of the Otemma Glacier (45°56'04.9"N 7°24'46.1"E), and attempted to mimic the hydraulic and environmental conditions of the tributaries found on the Otemma floodplain. We produced a photogrammetric dataset of the flumes at the experiment time-scale. We collected daily images...

Estructuras de colapso en glaciares temperados: su conexión con el régimen subglaciar y el derretimiento superficial

Glaciers are retreating worldwide due to climate change, creating extensive proglacial margins exposed to solar radiation and hence colonization by phototrophic organisms. The extremely dynamic nature of proglacial margins makes ecological colonization difficult. Whilst proglacial margins have received significant attention from the geomorphology c...

Temperate Alpine glaciers produce substantial quantities of sediment that are exported via active subglacial meltwater channels to their proglacial environments. Measurements of suspended sediment and bedload in proglacial rivers have been used to estimate glacial erosion rates and downstream sediment yields, assuming that eroded sediment is rapidl...

Large Alpine glaciers typically export significant quantities of subglacially eroded sediment to their downstream environments via meltwater streams. The supply of this glaciogenically-produced sediment has an extensive impact on landform genesis and evolution; downstream ecology and ecosystem succession; river morphology and flood risk management;...

Alpine glaciers have been rapidly retreating and at increasing rates in recent decades due to climate warming. As a consequence, large amounts of suspended-and bed-load flux are being released to proglacial environments, such as proglacial forefields. These regions are among the most unstable geomorphic systems of the Earth because they rapidly res...

By growing awareness for and interest in climate change, media coverage enlarges the window of opportunity by which research can engage individuals and collectives in climate actions. However, we question whether the climate change research that gets mediatized is fit for this challenge. From a survey of the 51,230 scientific articles published in...

Debris-covered ice is widespread in mountain regions with debris an important control on surface ice melt and glacier retreat. Quantifying debris cover extent and its evolution through time over large regions remains a challenge. This study develops two Normalized Difference Supraglacial Debris Indices for mapping debris-covered ice based on therma...

In proglacial floodplains, glacier recession promotes biogeochemical and ecological gradients across relatively small spatial scales. The resulting environmental heterogeneity induces remarkable microbial biodiversity among proglacial stream biofilms. Yet the relative importance of environmental constraints in forming biofilm communities remains la...

Glaciated alpine catchments are rapidly evolving due to glacier retreat and consequent geomorphological and ecological changes. As more terrain becomes ice free, the interactions between surface and subsurface waters become gradually more significant, leading to potential changes in water storage and release, which in turn may impact ecological, ge...

Rapid climate change is impacting water resources in Afghanistan. The consequences are poorly known. Suitable mitigation and adaptation strategies have not been developed. Thus, this paper summarizes current status of knowledge in relation to Afghan water resources. More than 130 scientific articles, reports and data sources are synthesized to revi...

Outburst floods triggered by breaching of landslide dams may cause severe loss of life and property downstream. Accurate identification and assessment of such floods, especially when leading to secondary impacts, are critical. In 2018, the Baige landslide in the Tibetan Plateau twice blocked the Jinsha River, eventually resulting in a severe outbur...

Cross-domain interactions are an integral part of the success of complex biofilms in natural environments. Here, we report on cross-domain interactions in biofilms of streams draining proglacial floodplains in the Swiss Alps. These streams, as a consequence of the retreat of glaciers, are characterized by multiple environmental gradients and stabil...

The rapid recession of glaciers is exposing large zones to the development of embryonic phototrophic ecosystems and eventual ecological succession. Traditionally, succession patterns in glacial forefields have been seen as a response to time since deglaciation, but nowadays forefield exposure is so rapid that this theory may be less applicable. In...

Proglacial margins form when glaciers retreat and create zones with distinctive ecological, geomorphological and hydrological properties in Alpine environments. There is extensive literature on the geomorphology and sediment transport in such areas as well as on glacial hydrology, but there is much less research into the specific hydrological behav...

The way Alpine rivers mobilize, convey and store coarse material during high-magnitude events is poorly understood, notably because it is difficult to obtain measurements of bedload transport at the watershed scale. Seismic sensor data, evaluated with appropriate seismic physical models, can provide that missing link by yielding absolute time-serie...

Rapid atmospheric warming since the mid-twentieth century has increased temperature-dependent erosion and sediment-transport processes in cold environments, affecting food, energy and water security. In this Review, we summarize landscape changes in cold environments and provide a global inventory of increases in erosion and sediment yield driven b...

Part 1 of this study discussed the concept of using a form of Turing‐like Test for model evaluation, together with eight principles for implementing such an approach. In this part, the framing of fitness‐for‐purpose as a Turing‐like Test is discussed, together with an example application of trying to assess whether a rainfall‐runoff model might be...

Model invalidation is a good thing. It means that we are forced to reconsider either model structures or the available data more closely, that is to challenge our fundamental understanding of the problem at hand. It is not easy, however, to decide when a model should be invalidated, when we expect that the sources of uncertainty in environmental mo...

Glacier shrinkage opens new proglacial terrain with pronounced environmental gradients along longitudinal and lateral chronosequences. Despite the environmental harshness of the streams that drain glacier forelands, their benthic biofilms can harbor astonishing biodiversity spanning all domains of life. Here, we studied the spatial dynamics of prok...

Loess landform variability across large spatial extents needs to be analyzed to understand the formation and evolution of loess landscapes. This is becoming increasingly possible via the automated analysis of remotely-sensed data. Here, we quantify loess landforms using an object-based image analysis (OBIA) method and use this classification to des...

Outburst floods triggered by breaching of landslide dams may cause severe loss of life and property downstream. Accurate identification and assessment of such floods, especially when they leading to secondary impacts, is critical. In 2018, the Baige landslide in the Tibetan Plateau twice blocked the Jinsha River, eventually resulting in a severe ou...

Microbial biofilms have received great attention in the last few decades from both aquatic ecologists and biogeomorphologists. Most recently, this has focused on mapping biofilms to understand their spatial distributions and ecosystem services. Such studies often involve the use of satellite imagery, which typically provides large temporal and spat...

Global warming-induced melting and thawing of the cryosphere are severely altering the volume and timing of water supplied from High Mountain Asia, adversely affecting downstream food and energy systems that are relied on by billions of people. The construction of more reservoirs designed to regulate streamflow and produce hydropower is a critical...

A talk on how to build low-cost arduino dataloggers and LoRaWAN network. Codes and tutorials available here : https://github.com/tomuelle/DIYweatherstation

Rapid glacier retreat leads to the emergence of new rocky landscapes. The common assumption of the presence of bare bedrock underlying glaciers and the closely related assumption that glacier and snow melt manifest themselves essentially as surface runoff, is challenged by the rapid sediment accumulation and the formation of geomorphological landfo...

Benthic biofilms have received great attention in recent decades but their development and survival in glacial stream systems is less well-known. Glacial stream systems are highly dynamic and partially define how habitats develop in front of retreating glaciers. The habitats that lead to biofilm development require environmental conditions that are...

Proglacial margins form when glaciers retreat, and create zones with distinctive ecological, geomorphological and hydrological properties in Alpine environments. There is extensive literature on geomorphology and sediment transport in such areas as well as surface and glacial hydrology; but there is much less research into the specific hydrological...

Understanding and predicting bedload transport is an important element of watershed management. Yet, predictions of bedload remain uncertain by up to several order(s) of magnitude. In this contribution, we use a 5‐year continuous time series of streamflow and bedload transport monitoring in a 13.4‐km² snow‐dominated Alpine watershed in the Western...

There is well-established evidence that dams disconnect upstream to downstream sediment flux in rivers and that this may have negative impact on downstream ecosystems. For this reason, the development of environmental flows now includes sediment supply and transport whether through reconnecting upstream supplied sediment to a river downstream of a...

The ambition of this symposium was to review and create knowledge and praxis in bedload management, support the implementation of restoration measures in Switzerland and strengthen the international network among scientists and practitioners. Switzerland has the legal goal and the financial tools to restore its rivers from the impacts of sediment...

Plain Language Summary Mountain glaciers have been melting and retreating more rapidly since the onset of accelerated atmospheric warming in the late 1980s. Our study examines 22 Swiss glaciers in order to understand why, for some glaciers, the ice surface close to the glacier margin breaks down and forms collapse features, and for others, it does...

Beavers (Castor fiber, Castor canadensis) are one of the most influential mammalian ecosystem engineers, heavily modifying river corridor hydrology, geomorphology, nutrient cycling, and ecosystems. As an agent of disturbance, they achieve this first and foremost through dam construction, which impounds flow and increases the extent of open water, a...

• Primary production is a fundamental ecosystem process that influences nutrient and carbon cycling, and trophic structure in streams. The magnitude and timing of gross primary production (GPP) are typically controlled by hydrology, light, nutrient availability and grazers. Estimates of GPP and its drivers in high-mountain streams remain elusive at...

The river discharge of recently deglaciated headwater catchments shows strong variations at daily, seasonal and annual time-scales. These cycles are susceptible to changes in the near future due to rapid glacier retreat combined with warmer winters and earlier snowmelt. Low discharges, in particular, are not only driven by climatic conditions but a...

EGU21-535

Studying subglacial drainage networks is important for understanding the potential relationship between channel dynamics and rapid glacier recession as well as the role of subglacial channels in subglacial sediment evacuation. In order to delineate the planform geometry of snout marginal subglacial channels, densely spaced ground-penetrating radar...

The temporal variability in sediment export yield from glaciers over a timescale of multiple glacial cycles (e.g. 1 × 10² − 1 × 10⁶ years) is of interest for a wide range of applications in glaciology, sedimentology, geomorphology, climatology and environmental engineering. However, the time required for the products of glacial erosion to be transf...

Biofilms have received great attention in the last few decades including their potential contribution to carbon fluxes and ecosystem engineering in aquatic ecosystems. Quantifying the spatial distribution of biofilms and their dynamics through time is a critical challenge. Satellite imagery is one solution, and can provide multi- and hyper-spectral...

Environmental seismology is the discipline that uses ambient noise to detect and to measure geomorphic processes. The basic principle relies on the unique seismic signal, in terms of excited frequencies and amplitudes, generated by such processes which is then propagated and recorded to sensors (geophones). Recent developments of this technique are...

Over the past two decades, several semi-automated approaches for identifying debris covered ice have been proposed but challenges remain. Manual delineation of debris-covered glaciers has been recognized as an accurate method but is labor- and time-intensive for large regions. Geomorphological mapping in complex mountain environments is recognized...

Whilst time‐series of sediment transport in gullies in both laboratory experimental and field settings can be determined through instrumentation, quantifying the spatial distribution of transport rates remains challenging. The morphological method, which was proposed for estimating bed‐material transport in both 1D and 2D in rivers, provides an alt...

Climate change impacts on sediment production and transfer processes on hillslopes and through channels are governed by possible changes in precipitation, runoff, and air temperature. These hydrological and geomorphological impacts are difficult to predict in temperature‐sensitive Alpine environments. In this study, we combined a stochastic weather...

The confluence of rivers is characterized by highly complex internal processes. The hydrodynamic aspects of river confluences have received a lot of attention in recent years. For modeling purposes, it is generally assumed that the water densities of the rivers under consideration are close, and the density effects associated with their difference...

High‐resolution time series of dissolved oxygen (DO) have revealed different ecosystem energetics regimes across various stream types. Ecosystem energetic regimes are relevant to better understand the transformation and retention of nutrients and carbon in stream ecosystems. However, the patterns and controls of stream energetics in high‐mountain l...