Data for 'Mapping and characterization of avalanches on mountain glaciers with Sentinel-1 satellite imagery'

This dataset contains avalanche deposit outlines (as shapefiles) derived for the study 'Mapping and characterization of avalanches on mountain glaciers with Sentinel-1 satellite imagery'

They were outlined at three different sites (Mt Blanc, Everest and Hispar regions) for the periods 11/2016-10/2021 (Mt Blanc) and 11/2017-10/2022 (Everest and Hispar). The time period is indicated in the file name.

For each dataset we give the raw outlines (Automated_outlines_dates), the manually updated (Automated_outlines_dates_ManualUpd) and the manually updated after accounting for surface elevation change (Automated_outlines_dates_ManualUpd_shifted). 

In order to know which scenes were used for the mapping (if no avalanche was detected, we did not provide a shapefile, but this doesn't been that there is a gap in the Sentinel-1 time series), we provide a Sentinel1_date file that shows all the Sentinel-1 RGB pairs that we used to detect the avalanches.

We also provide as geotiffs the temporally aggregated outlines (Automated_outlines_dates_ManualUpd_shifted_aggregated; over one specific year yn - from 01/11/yn-1 to 01/11/yn - or the full study period):

- as heatmaps (where the value of each pixel corresponds to the number of avalanches that occured) 

- as binary maps of deposits (where 1 is when an avalanche occured over the time period and 0 is where none were detected).

Finally we provide a csv file for each region with metrics per glacier:

RGI ID

Glacier size (in m^2)

Catchment size (in m^2)

Area of slopes steeper than 30° (in m^2)

The area of total deposits detected (by summing all the pixels of the deposit binary maps) in the ascending obits (in m^2)

The area of total deposits detected (by summing all the pixels of the deposit binary maps) in the descending obits (in m^2)

The avalanche activity detected (by summing all pixels of the heat maps) in the ascending orbits (in m^2)

The avalanche activity detected (by summing all pixels of the heat maps) in the descending orbits (in m^2)

The area of the glacier visible in the ascending orbits (in m^2)

The area of the glacier visible in the descending orbits (in m^2)

The main Google Earth Engine and Matlab scripts used to pre-process the Sentinel-1 GRD images and to map the avalanches are available on GitHub: https://github.com/MarinKneib/S1_avalanches