Abstract: The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, an iconic project of the Belt and Road Initiative, matters greatly to the economic and cultural exchanges of China-Pakistan region. Passing through the Pamirs and Karakoram Mountain System, the Corridor has been frequented by various types of geological disasters at altitudes above 4,000 meters caused by freeze-thaw cycles in permafrost. Studies on permafrost distribution and mapping constitute the basis for solving practical engineering problems along the Corridor, and they are of great importance to water resource utilization, ecological security and border defense. The study has a spatial coverage of approximately 23°47′ N – 40°55′ N, 60°20′ E – 80°16′ E, including Kashgar in Xinjiang, Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture and the whole Pakistan. The data of permafrost distribution along the Corridor (format: Tiff; spatial resolution: 1 km) were acquired on the basis of TTOP Model, including MODIS surface temperature data from 2013 to 2017, glacial cataloging data for the Pamirs of China in 2009, glacier cataloging for Pakistan in 2003 – 2004 and World Soil Database for 2008 (HWSD v1.2). The data were then analyzed through statistical methods and validated against existed literature. This dataset can serve as fundamental survey material for studying permafrost changes along the Corridor, providing basic data support for researches on frost heaving and thawing during the construction of the region. Besides, the dataset could be analyzed together with climate, hydrological, and other data to reveal the quantitative relation among the hydrology-soil-atmosphere-ecology of the Corridor, thereby deepening scientific understanding of the region’s ecological environment and sustainable development against the background of climate changes.
Keywords: China-Pakistan Economic Corridor; permafrost distribution; TTOP Model; MODIS land surface temperature