Cambio climático en Colombia:modelación de la dinámica y estructura de los glaciares tropicales en la cordillera oriental de Colombia usando técnicas geomáticas

Abstract

This thesis evaluates the application of geomatics to the characterization and understanding of the dynamics of tropical glaciers in Colombia, the case study was the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy. A novel methodology is proposed to calculate paleoELA efficiently and with greater precision with free GIS tools, which be easily available for organizations and entities of the Andean countries, with this methodology calculations it was posible to assess the paleoELA for eight ancient glacial valleys in the study región, PaleoELAs were found by three different methods, for eight glaciers in the study area, and two glacial events, which allows us to better understand and quantify the magnitude of past glacial retreat, and the methodology is compared with two other classical methods; likewise, another methodology is proposed to build a spatial database that allows inventorying, storing, monitoring and analyzing glaciological and environmental data associated with Climate Change; and finally, GIS tools for pattern recognition and characterization of glaciers such as classical geomorphometry, fuzzy logic and wavelet transform are analyzed. This study is part of the urgent need that the tropical Andean countries have to study more, better understand, and plan better their high mountain ecosystems and life zones, a very important natural resource for most of their communities that live in these regions. Especially in Colombia, it is one of the pioneering theses that addresses glaciar studies using GIS.