Retrogressive thaw slumps along the Qinghai–Tibet Engineering Corridor: a comprehensive inventory and their distribution characteristics

Abstract

The important Qinghai–Tibet Engineering Corridor (QTEC) covers the part of the Highway and Railway underlain by permafrost. The permafrost on the QTEC is sensitive to climate warming and human disturbance and suffers accelerating degradation. Retrogressive thaw slumps (RTSs) are slope failures due to the thawing of ice-rich permafrost. They typically retreat and expand at high rates, damaging infrastructure, and releasing carbon preserved in frozen ground. Along the critical and essential corridor, RTSs are commonly distributed but remain poorly investigated. To compile the first comprehensive inventory of RTSs, this study uses an iteratively semi-automatic method built on deep learning to delineate thaw slumps in the 2019 PlanetScope CubeSat images over a ∼ 54 000 km2 corridor area. The method effectively assesses every image pixel using DeepLabv3+ with limited training samples and manually inspects the deep-learning-identified thaw slumps based on their geomorphic features and temporal changes. The inventory includes 875 RTSs, of which 474 are clustered in the Beiluhe region, and 38 are near roads or railway lines. The dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6397029​​​​​​​ (Xia et al., 2021a), with the Chinese version at DOI: https://doi.org/10.11888/Cryos.tpdc.272672 (Xia et al. 2021b). These RTSs tend to be located on north-facing slopes with gradients of 1.2–18.1∘ and distributed at medium elevations ranging from 4511 to 5212 m a.s.l. They prefer to develop on land receiving relatively low annual solar radiation (from 2900 to 3200 kWh m−2), alpine meadow covered, and loam underlay. Our results provide a significant and fundamental benchmark dataset for quantifying thaw slump changes in this vulnerable region undergoing strong climatic warming and extensive human activities.