Abstract:Palong Zangbo Basin is located in southeastern Tibet where maritime glaciers are most developed in China. In recent years, with the intensification of global greenhouse effect, the glacier changes in Palong Zangbo Basin are very significant. In this paper, the trend, causes and effects of glacier changes in the Palong Zangbo Basin( the section of Bomi and Ranwu) from 1994-2015 are studied by using multi temporal remote sensing images. The results show that: (1) Over the past 20 years, the total area of glaciers in the study area has decreased by 451.72 km2, and each glacier retreats by 2.48%~2.95% annually. The increase of temperature and the decrease of rainfall are the main reasons for the continued retreat of glacier area. (2) The southern slope of the Palongzangbo River receives less solar radiation heat, but the precipitation is more abundant, making the glacier area on the southern bank of the Palongzangbo River much larger than that on the northern bank, and the retreat rate of glaciers on the south bank is much lower. (3) With the continuous retreat of glaciers, a large number of frozen and thawed loose material sources in the upper reaches of the gully enter the gully under the external dynamic conditions of ice and snow melting water to provide material sources, resulting in large-scale development of glacial debris flows in the Palong Zangbo Basin. Glacier debris flows on the southern bank of the Palong Zangbo River are more developed because of the larger scale of the glaciers. (4) Strengthening dynamic monitoring of glacier change has important reference and guidance value for mechanism analysis and early warning research of glacier debris flow.