Advances and challenges in monitoring, risk assessment, and early warning of ice avalanches in High Mountain Asia

Amid ongoing climate change, ice avalanches in High Mountain Asia (HMA) have become more frequent, posing serious risks to mountain communities, transportation routes, and downstream areas. This review consolidates current understanding of the spatial and temporal distribution of ice avalanches in HMA and evaluates advances in monitoring techniques, risk assessment, and early warning systems. Findings indicate that ice avalanches predominantly occur in the southern, southeastern, and northwestern regions of HMA, with a noticeable increase in both frequency and magnitude. While spaceborne, airborne, and ground-based approaches provide complementary insights into ice avalanche activity, each has distinct limitations and lacks systematic integration. Similarly, current risk assessment methods often rely on simplified representations of vulnerability and exposure, creating uncertainties and insufficiently accounting for cascading hazards. Early warning systems remain largely experimental and are constrained by environmental challenges, limited financial support, and fragmented governance, limiting operational capacity. Overall, although substantial progress has been made in ice-avalanche monitoring in HMA, monitoring efforts remain fragmented and insufficiently integrated. This limits the availability of consistent and comprehensive observations, constraining the development of robust quantitative risk assessment frameworks and operational early warning systems for effective disaster risk management.