Glacial lake serves as a sensitive indicator of regional climate change and trigger of major glacial disasters. Understanding its spatial distribution and changing characteristics is of great significance for exploring the response of glacial lake to climate change and assessing the risk of glacial lake outburst. Based on the topographic maps in 1968-1980 and Landsat TM/OLI remote sensing images from 1994 to 2016, we analyzed the spatial-temporal distribution and dynamic changes of glacial lakes with an area larger than 0.01 km2 in the Parlung Zangbo River Basin as well as identified and evaluated the potential dangerous glacial lakes using RS, GIS and mathematical statistics methods. The results showed that: In 2016, there were 351 glacial lakes with a total area of 50.48 km2 in the Parlung Zangbo River Basin. Glacial lakes with areas >1 km2 accounted for the largest area and <0.1 km2 accounted for the biggest number. Glacial lakes were mainly concentrated in 2800-5400 m. In the past 50 years, the number and area of glacial lakes in this basin have increased. Among them, the number and area of glacial lakes below 3000 m were relatively stable, whereas those above 4500 m increased rapidly. Under the background of climate warming, the glacier area in the Parlung Zangbo River Basin has decreased by 591.34 km2 in the past 50 years. The retreat of the glacier terminal and the increase of glacial meltwater provided development space and material source for the formation, expansion and area increase of glacial lakes. There were 9 potentially dangerous glacial lakes being identified in the Parlung Zangbo River Basin. It is expected that the glacial lake outburst will be in an active stage in the future. © 2019 by Journal of Lake Sciences.
