Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE)

Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE)
Historical Background

Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) was set up in 1969 near Manali to combat the hazards of snow and avalanches not only to help the Armed Forces to fight and live in the mountains but also to accelerate the pace of socio-economic growth of the inaccessible snowbound hill regions. SASE was initially assigned the task of studying snow and avalanche problems along certain mountain highways in snowbound belt of Indian Himalayas. This was subsequently extended to encompass various other roads too.

The mid-seventies witnessed the introduction of experimental avalanche forecasting. This was followed by a complete reorientation in early eighties when a number of competence building projects were initiated. Today SASE’s Research and Development Centre (RDC) is also functioning from HIM PARISAR, Sector 37-A, Chandigarh.

Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE)
Achievements

Avalanche Mapping
A number of highways and lateral road axes in J&K, HP and Uttaranchal have been studied for identification and registration of snow avalanche paths, snow drift deposition and ice formation sites; frequency and severity of avalanche activity; and the extent of highway affected.

Avalanche Atlas
Published atlases comprising terrain data, frequency of occurrence of avalanches, magnitude of damage, proposed control measures etc.

Automatic Weather Stations
A Network of stand alone Automatic Weather Stations has been established in high altitude regions of J&K, HP and Uttaranchal for acquiring uninterrupted snow and meteorological data. The data of all the stations are received at RDC SASE, Chandigarh by a state of the art digital Earth Receiving Station.

Observatory Network
For acquiring snow and meteorological data which aid in avalanche forecasting, high altitude manned observatories have been set up in J&K, HP and Uttaranchal .

Avalanche Forecasting
For forecasting the probability of avalanche occurrence.
This includes :
a) Avalanche Warning Bulletins
For generating awareness amongst the users and reduce casualty rate, issued bulletins for selected regions of J&K, HP and Uttaranchal and to news media and also broadcast on AIR.
b) Snow-Meteorological Data bank
Created Data bank of snow-meteorological parameters of various high-altitude observatories in J&K, HP and Uttaranchal for future research work.

Avalanche Control Structures
Designed and executed avalanche control structures in all the three zones of avalanche at difficult sites. These include formation zone structures like snow rakes, snow bridges and snow nets; middle zone control structures like diversion dams; and retarding structures like mounds and catch dams in the runout zone. Snow Gallery has also been designed to control one of the avalanche site in Middle Zone in HP.

Artificial Triggering of Avalanche
Experiments have been carried out to artificially trigger avalanches by different methods.

De-icing of Roads
Experiments have been conducted and methodology evolved for different de-icing techniques.

Snow Hydrology
Carried out snow melt run-off prediction based on point energy balance method for sub-catchments of Beas Basin.

Instrumentation
Developed automatic weather stations for use in remote areas, capable of working upto –40oC. The recording and transmission of data was successfully tried out.