On the Issue of Modelling the Dynamic Picture of the Spread of a Mudflow in the Shovi Gorge due to a Collapse on the Glacier Buba

Main Article Content

Zurab A. Kereselidze
Nodar D. Varamashvili

Abstract

Glaciers have always been a potential hazard in the Caucasus region, where mountain canyons are quite densely populated. The processes associated with global climate change occurring everywhere have greatly exacerbated the problem of preventing the population from glacial disasters. For example, there is a sad experience associated with the collapse of the Kolka glacier, which caused a giant ice mudflow in 2002. A similar disaster should include the glacial mudflow from the Buba glacier on 9/3/2023, which resulted in a tragedy with numerous victims at the Shovi resort. Determining the possible place and time of development of such catastrophic events (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, large-scale floods) has a very low degree of reliability and is problematic, despite the modern level of scientific methods of ground and space monitoring. In particular, there is an obvious need for long-term monitoring and comprehensive diagnostics of the current state of the Caucasus glaciers, taking into account each new experience. It should be noted that there is a paucity of information that allows us to judge the processes that have occurred on the Buba glacier over the past decades. Therefore, hardly anyone could imagine a large-scale virtual picture of the spread of a glacial mudflow along the gorges of the Bubistskali and Dzhandzhakhi rivers, adequate to what it turned out to be in reality. At the same time, in the case of a sufficiently complete database of observation results and its correct analysis, based on the principle of hydrodynamic similarity, there is a possibility of theoretical modeling of probable parameters of a flood or glacial mudflow in any mountain gorge. For example, in the case of the Caucasus region, one can use some of the results obtained by numerical modeling of the Dzhankuat and Kolka glaciers. In particular, these models are quite useful not only for determining probable causes, but also for retrospective analysis of the consequences of destruction on the Buba glacier. First of all. This concerns the process of propagation of hydrodynamic waves in a heterogeneous mudflow. For this purpose, records of seismic equipment are also important, which contain information on the frequency spectrum of acoustic waves generated by the process of destruction on the Buba glacier. Hydrodynamic waves of various types could have existed in the gorges of the Bubistskali and Chanchakhi rivers. In the characteristic range of the Froude similarity number, the most probable is the generation of running rolling waves, the height of which could reach several meters. The appearance of solitary waves (solitons), as well as the so-called gravity waves, was unlikely, but one cannot exclude the possibility of their generation in those places for which local conditions were suitable. In the lower, widest section of the Shovi gorge, in the zone of the so-called cottages, the movement of the mudflow was similar to the movement of the ice mudflow in the Genaldon River gorge after the collapse of the Kolka glacier in 2002. Despite the huge difference in the initial volumes of mudflows that came down from the Buba and Kolka glaciers, the deposit of viscoplastic mass in the last sections of its distribution turned out to be comparable taking into account the spatial scale and the amplitude of the waves in both cases decreased to heights of 1-3 meters.

Keywords:
natural disasters, glacier, debris-flow, acoustic waves, viscoplastic.
Published: Dec 23, 2024

Article Details

How to Cite
Kereselidze, Z. A., & Varamashvili, N. D. (2024). On the Issue of Modelling the Dynamic Picture of the Spread of a Mudflow in the Shovi Gorge due to a Collapse on the Glacier Buba. Journals of Georgian Geophysical Society, 27(2). Retrieved from https://ggs.openjournals.ge/index.php/GGS/article/view/8461
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