The Imja river in Khumbu region with village in the left, these rivers could experience floods if a GLOF happened. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

By Tanka Dhakal
KATHMANDU, May 28 2024 (IPS)

Phu Chhettar Sherpa, who worked as an icefall doctor (a Sherpa who fixes ropes for climbers) for seven years from 2015 to 2021 on Mt. Everest, vividly recalls his fear of possible flash floods after the huge earthquake in Nepal in 2015.

“I was at the Everest base camp when it started shaking, and within moments, dead bodies were in front of my eyes,” Sherpa, who now works as a trekking guide in the region, shared. “After some time, there was fear of possible Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) from the Imja Glacial Lake, and I was thinking about my family downstream. Thankfully, GLOFs didn’t happen.”

Like Sherpa, millions of people who live in the Himalayan and downstream in the Hindu-Kush Himalaya (HKH) region, including Nepal, are at risk of possible flash floods that can be unimaginably destructive within a short span of time if the outburst of potentially dangerous glacier lakes occurs, which can be triggered by earthquakes, avalanches, or the accumulation of excessive amounts of water from melting ice.

So, what exactly are GLOFs?

In general, GLOFs refer to the sudden release of water from a glacier lake, which is formed by meltwater from a mountain glacier (river of ice in the mountains) and is held back by rocks, sediment carried by the glacier, known as moraine, or a combination of ice and moraine.

Scientists with extensive experience in understanding glacier and mountain systems also say, in general terms, GLOFs refer to any flood of water that originates from a lake associated with a glacier.

Dr. Miriam Jackson, Senior Cryosphere Specialist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), explained, “The lake can be beside the glacier, in front of it, under it (subglacial), or actually on the glacier (supraglacial).”

She added, “The term is even used when the lake is in a glacier valley, but a few hundred meters from the glacier.”

As climate change affects glaciers, many of them are shrinking, leading to the formation of lakes.

“In the Himalayas, many lakes are formed in front of the glacier and are blocked by a small ridge called a moraine, which is made of material that the glacier pushed forward when it was much larger,” Jackson explained.

What causes the outburst of these lakes?

The main causes of GLOFs are earthquakes, avalanches, and the buildup of water in lakes as a result of glaciers melting quickly. The root cause of these phenomena is the rising temperature, with researchers noting a relatively high impact of climate change in the Himalayas, where glacier melting is occurring at an accelerated pace, leading to the creation of new lakes and the expansion of existing ones.

A research paper published in the Nature in 2023 suggests that glaciers may melt even faster than expected, potentially contributing to sea-level rise at a quicker rate than previously thought. Another study, published in Nature Climate Change in 2020, analyzed more than 250 thousand satellite images, revealing a rapid growth of glacial lakes around the world over the last three decades, indicating the impact of increased meltwater draining from melting glaciers.

Ines Dussaillant, a glaciologist at the World Glacier Monitoring Service who was in the Mt. Everest region in the first week of May, expressed concern about glacier melting in the Himalayan region. She explained, “Because the geography here is more fragile, mixed with ice and moraine, and these newly formed or expanding glacial lakes have weakly formed dams,” She added, “If events like avalanches, earthquakes, or water accumulation exceed the capacity of the dams, outburst floods can occur.”

How can avalanches trigger GLOFs?

In third week of April 2024 Nepal experienced a trigger of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) as Birendra Lake, a glacial lake in the Gorkha district, flash-flooded downstream communities because of splashed water. This was caused by an avalanche on Mt. Manaslu, which led to a sudden release of water from Birendra Lake and resulted in flooding in the downstream community.

According to Jackson, an avalanche is a sudden fall of material on a steep slope, and could be a snow avalanche, ice avalanche, or rock avalanche.

“Glacial lakes are usually in steep terrain so are prone to avalanches into the lake,” she explained, “An avalanche can trigger a GLOF, either by causing a small displacement of water due to the material landing in the lake (probably the case for the recent GLOF at Birendra Lake), or this could trigger a much bigger event, say by causing moraine collapse.”

Why is the Hindu-Kush Himalaya region important?

Scientists say 54,000 glaciers are in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region and almost all of them are getting smaller due to climate change.

“This means that lakes can form (usually beside or in front), and that existing lakes may get bigger,” Jackson said. “The rivers coming down from the high mountains often flow along very narrow valleys. People may live in a valley where a GLOF could occur and not even know about the glacier and lake status as they are so far upstream.”

The floods come down these narrow valleys and may also bring a lot of rock and sediment with them. For example, the GLOF in Sikkim last October caused huge damage, including to a large hydropower facility at Chungthang.

“People should be aware if they live somewhere (or frequently travel) where a GLOF could take place,” Jackson, who is also a scientist for IPCC reports. “If there is an early warning system, then they can support this by making sure it is well-maintained and attend any training offered that is related to it.”

A glacial lake inventory report published in 2020 has identified 47 potentially dangerous glacial lakes (PDGLs) within the Koshi, Gandiaki, and Karnali river basins of Nepal (21 in Nepal), the Tibet Autonomous Region of China (25 in China), and India (one in India). The report says these moraine-dammed glacial lakes are at risk of breaching, which would result in glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs).

Water level lowering is one way to mitigate potential hazards that may be caused by GLOFs, as has been done in Imja Tsho (Imaja Lake) glacial lake in the Khumbu region. But experts believe the role of local communities is extremely important for reporting potential hazards and any significant changes.

“If they (local people) think there is a danger of a GLOF but there is no early warning system, this should be raised with their local representatives,” Jackson said. “If people are sometimes in high areas where they see glaciers and glacial lakes and see that things are changing (such as the lake getting bigger), then this should be reported as soon as possible.”

This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

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Excerpt:

Maryam Akhtar, a farmer in Kashmir, worries the taps will not yield enough water for her family's daily needs. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

By Athar Parvaiz
SRINAGAR, India, Aug 16 2013 (IPS)

Zareena Bano has had to skip school 17 times this year to help out on her family’s farm in Tangchekh village in the northern Indian state of Kashmir.

Her teachers say she has the potential to be a brilliant student, but warn that if she keeps missing school she will not go far.

Never before has the 15-year-old had to sacrifice her education in order to support her family, but an acute water crisis in this Himalayan state has made irrigation a constant worry and severely disrupted the way of life for thousands of farming families like her own.

Troubled though they are by the toll the extra labour is taking on their daughter’s schoolwork, Zareena’s parents are in no position to order her to stay away from the fields.

Her father, Gaffar Rathar, says the family is entirely dependent on the yields from his 2.5-acre paddy field and half a dozen walnut trees. Frequent droughts mean a lot of additional hard work for him and his family.

“Sometimes, when water is in extremely short supply, we have to store water in small ponds that we dug ourselves, and plastic containers,” he told IPS.

Most residents of this lush valley, nestled between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range, are unaccustomed to drought. For generations subsistence agriculturalists have relied on steady rainfall and glacial rivers to irrigate their farmland, but now this scenic alpine region is feeling the pinch of climate change.

The most recent State of the Environment Report (SOER), released by the Directorate of Ecology, Environment and Remote Sensing in the capital, Srinagar, says that all its monitoring stations across Kashmir – except Jammu, which is located 290 km away from the capital – recorded a decreasing trend in total annual rainy days.

A number of other studies carried out in recent years corroborate these findings, adding that glaciers in the Kashmir Himalayas are receding, while snowfall and precipitation are both showing decreasing trends.

A study by Norwegian scientist Andreas Kaab and his French colleagues, which was published by Nature Magazine in August last year, found that increasing temperatures in the region posed no immediate threat to glaciers in the Hindu-Kush Karakoram Himalayas (HKKH) except to those in the Kashmir Himalayas.

Kaab’s findings suggest that Kashmir’s glaciers may be receding by “as much as half a metre annually,” presenting an immediate threat to the rivers that feed the Indus basin.

Jhelum, the largest river in the region, originates in South Kashmir and is fed by glaciers in the upper reaches of the town of Pahalgam. One of the river Jhelum’s primary tributaries, the Lidder, is fed by the Kolhai glacier, which is receding fast.

Quoting a study conducted by Kashmir University’s geography department, Department Head Mohammad Sultan Bhat informed IPS that, since 1975, precipitation in the lower parts of Kashmir has declined by 1.2 centimetres in lower altitudes and eight cm in higher altitudes.

These trends, say experts, bode badly for the future of Kashmir’s agricultural industry: according to figures in the most recent Kashmir Economic Survey, only 42 percent of agricultural land in Kashmir is covered by irrigation facilities like canals and lift stations, while the remaining 58 percent is entirely dependent on rainfall.

Following the enforcement of the Big Landed Estates Abolition Act in 1959, over 9,000 landowners were stripped of over 100,000 hectares of land, which was transferred to peasants, thereby creating an agrarian-based economy in Kashmir.

Over 80 percent of the population is now dependent on agriculture for a livelihood, cultivating such crops as rice, maize, pulses, saffron and potatoes.

Official statistics indicate that 75 percent of agricultural land – roughly 46,943 hectares – is under paddy cultivation in Kashmir, indicating that rice farmers comprise the bulk of agriculturalists here.

Early this year, scientists from the earth sciences department at the Kashmir University revealed that increases in temperature and a considerable reduction in precipitation would result in a sharp decrease in paddy yields across the region.

Earlier this year, renowned scientists Shakil A. Romshoo and M. Muslim presented a paper at the Indian Science Congress in New Delhi, predicting that rice production would decrease by 6.6 percent (over 4,000 kg per hectare) by 2040.

According to Romshoo, these projected declines are based on predictions that maximum and minimum temperature will increase by 5.39degrees Celsius and 5.08degrees Celsius respectively by 2090.  Precipitation levels are likely to decrease by about 16.67 percent by 2090.

Most farmers in Kashmir earn roughly 1,900 dollars a year and produce an annual average of 40 quintals (4,000 kgs) of paddy per hectare. Experts say these farmers will struggle to withstand the decrease in yields that will undoubtedly accompany the predicted weather changes.

Already countless families are feeling the pinch of decreasing water supplies. Nasreena Begum, a mother of three children living in the village of Surigam in the northern Kupwara district, spends several hours every morning walking over a kilometre to fetch water from a stagnant pond, since the stream that once bordered her village has completely dried up.

She told IPS she makes the trek several times a day in order to collect enough water to meet her family’s daily needs.

In addition to drinking and washing water, she must also ensure that the family cow is properly watered, since her children rely heavily on the cow’s milk for nourishment and she herself sells five litres a day to the local milkman in order to supplement her husband’s meagre earnings as a daily labourer.

As the rains become thinner, and the glacier-fed rivers slow to a trickle, she and many other farming families will be forced to hunker down to weather a hotter and drier Kashmir.

(END)

Melting glaciers are wreaking havoc in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS

By Malini Shankar
UTTARKASHI, India, Jul 27 2013 (IPS)

Over a month after flash floods in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in north India left 1,000 dead and 6,000 missing, the government has yet to release a full agricultural impact assessment, sparking fears about the extent of damage to the region’s farmland.

Questions remain as to how soon soil restoration efforts will fructify and when the farm economy, which accounted for just under 11 percent of the state’s 160-billion-dollar gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012-2013 will be restored to functionality.

Heavy flooding on Jun. 15-16, the result of torrential rains and glacial leaks in the Himalayas, wreaked havoc on Uttarakhand, as the headstreams of the holy River Ganga swelled and swept away roads, homes, scores of pilgrims, cattle and buildings.

With the government focusing its efforts almost entirely on an emergency rescue and relief operation coordinated by the armed forces (with over 42,000 rescues under its belt to date), the plight of farmers has been largely ignored.

Experts from the region say the summer crops have been washed out and the farms are in no shape to yield a winter harvest this year; the sowing season for rice, which coincides with the height of the monsoon (June to September) has been delayed as a result of heavy inundation of paddy fields caused by downpours and landslides.

Though agricultural fields are routinely inundated with the clay that runs down surrounding mountains during summer glacial melts and the annual monsoon, this latest calamity has created a disaster zone in what is frequently referred to as the “land of the gods”.

“It is possible that the top soil may have been altered for a considerably longer duration of time than expected,” Ram Kishan, regional emergency manager of South Asia for the UK-based NGO Christian Aid, told IPS.

This Himalayan state, irrigated naturally by perennial glacier-fed rivers, boasts a high degree of agricultural diversity. Rajma, or red kidney beans, and potatoes comprise the staple diet of the majority of Uttarakhand’s native population of 10 million people, according to the 2011 census.

Crops like rice, wheat, barley, millets, lentils, pulses, potatoes, fruits, vegetables, flowers, spices, herbs and mushrooms have been drowned by the floods, while debris from landslides has also compromised the grazing pastures of the state’s roughly 11.9 million heads of livestock, including cows, bullocks, buffaloes, sheep, goats, horses, pigs, hens, chickens and other birds like geese.

“Initial estimates suggest that 25 to 30 percent of cultivation has been affected,” said Kishan; this represents a huge chunk of the state’s average annual production of 8.2 million tonnes.

NGOs like Christian Aid fear that the resulting price rise in all essential commodities, like vegetables, fruits, milk, dairy products, cereals, lentils and pulses, in the near term will adversely affect the average farming family.

Over 65 percent of Uttarakhand’s residents, most of them subsistence farmers with small landholdings of less than a single hectare per family, are dependent on agriculture, according to Aide et Action.

Farmers and tourism

Farmers dependent on seasonal tourism to supplement their incomes during the monsoon months are particularly affected.

Uttarakhand is a popular destination for foreign tourists and local pilgrims alike: “Forty-seven million domestic tourists and (half a) million foreign tourists were expected in the current fiscal year”, according to Shekhar Ambati at Aide et Action. But the flash floods, he said, eroded this economic base.

The tourism industry is one of the largest employers in the region, hiring locals as porters, guides, drivers, naturalists and translators. Others rent out their mules, offering tourists rides on rocky terrain in order to earn their daily bread.

The tourist economy also supports local artisans and makers of traditional handicrafts, opens up jobs as caterers and cooks through the hospitality sector and enables families to establish small businesses like tea stalls, souvenir shops or grocery stores.

Ambati fears that the destruction of the “lifeline of religious tourism” will snowball, affecting the number of tourists arriving in the region and further endangering farmers’ incomes.

Quoting small business owners and vegetable sellers at the main market in the town of Rudraprayag, Eila Jafar of Care India told IPS that farmers are already starting to feel the crunch of scant agricultural yields.

“The number of daily wage labourers coming to the main market has reduced to a great extent,” Jafar told IPS.

Road conditions have deteriorated significantly since the floods: some roads were washed away altogether and others have been made impassable by debris, which is having an extremely “negative impact on the market and economy,” Jafar added.

Farmers who relied on the tourist infrastructure to sell their produce are among the worst affected.

“The state’s chamber of commerce and industry estimates that Uttarakhand has lost revenue earnings of over 20 billion dollars from its tourism sector alone in the current fiscal year on account of torrential rains that devastated the state,” says Ambati.

With tourism unlikely to recover for two to three years at least, the situation calls for “intervention” from the government to ensure that farmers have food and livelihood security in the short term.

(END)

The Indian Armed Forces had run a massive rescue operation in the flood-hit state of Uttarakhand. Credit: Courtesy Ministry of Defence, Government of India

By Malini Shankar
DEHRADUN, India, Jul 2 2013 (IPS)

Over 580 bodies have so far been found. Hundreds more will likely never turn up. Survivors say they are suspended in a kind of nightmare, either haunted by memories of their brush with death or desperate for news of loved ones. At least 3,000 are reported to be missing.

A fortnight after massive floods trapped thousands of tourists and pilgrims in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, frantic search and rescue operations are still under way.

Known as the Land of the Gods, this Himalayan state was tranformed from an idyllic prayer site into hell on earth when, on Jun. 15-17, torrential rains and flash floods caused by a cloudburst swelled the two headstreams of the holy river Ganga, which carried off thousands of people along with roads, homes, shops and large chunks of the mountains.

At the time of writing, only the pilgrimage town of Badrinath has been completely evacuated.

“The death toll is expected to increase after search and rescue operations cease and recovery commences,” he said, adding that the list of missing will be confirmed by Jul. 15.

Headlines and searchlights have largely focused on immediate events, bypassing the long-term, structural implications this tragedy will have on disaster management in India.

Already, the rescue operation is straining from a lack of coordinated action: families fear that their missing loved ones, living on nothing more than prayers, will not last much longer, while experts warn that swift and sanitary disposal of the dead is vital to prevent the spread of diseases; some scientists even fear that an outbreak of plague in the Himalayas is not far off.

When a rescue helicopter crashed in a valley thick with wildlife on Jun. 24, killing all 20 personnel on board, it provoked legitimate fears that the NDMA was floundering.

Confidence plummeted still further when a 3.5-magnitude earthquake struck Uttarakhand on Jun. 27, sparking panic that it would trigger landslides.

Requiring precision, highly trained personnel and a tight organisational command structure, search and rescue efforts have largely been entrusted to the armed forces.

Over the course of ten days the Indian Air Force flew approximately 2,000 sorties, averaging about one every five minutes, with help from the Indian Army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the state police and civil administration.

An additional 600 sorties have so far carried 24 tonnes of food into the affected areas for survivors and the displaced.

Troops have helped erect temporary steel bridges at crucial access points, as many bridges and long stretches of road were washed away in the rapid waters.

Paramilitary forces like the ITBP and the NDRF are rescuing frail and infirm people trapped in tough terrain while drones scan caves and scour remote terrain to evacuate those stranded on riverbeds or clinging precariously to fragile, wet embankments.

Grateful to be alive, Shobha Karandalaje a politician from the South Indian state of Karnataka, told IPS, “It was a scary experience. We were on our way to Kedarnath (a popular pilgrimage town in Uttarakhand) when suddenly the downpour worsened; rivers were in full spate, land sliding all around us,” she recounted.

“We were stuck in our jeep for a full five days in Rudraprayag (a bustling town on the forest’s edge at the point of confluence of the Alakananda and Mandakini rivers), surviving on snacks, sipping water. We trekked back 35 kilometres to Yamunotri, where road construction workers helped us reach Dehradun (Uttarakhand’s capital) safely.”

Deforestation on the steep Himalayan slopes has increased the likelihood of landslides in Uttarakhand. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS

Successful rescues notwithstanding, disappointment hangs thick in the air, with scientists lamenting that the tragedy could easily have been minimised if developers had heeded warnings about the fragility of the surrounding ecosystem and if the state government had paid greater attention to weather forecasts.

India’s NDMA, set up in 2005 after the calamitous Asian Tsunami of 2004, is tasked with taking measures to reduce the risk to human lives and livelihoods before calamities strike, embodying the “paradigm shift from the erstwhile relief-centric and post-event syndrome to pro-active prevention…” according to the official guidelines.

Determined to avoid a tragedy on the scale of the Boxing Day tsunami, the government invested huge amounts in forecasting services that could deliver accurate reports to the NDMA, which is expected to take all necessary measures to minimise loss of human life.

Accordingly, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a forecast of heavy rains in Uttarakhand starting Jun. 15, which failed to elicit a timely response from the state.

Addressing a press conference on Jun. 17, State Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna justified his government’s inaction by claiming that the “generic forecast (delivered ahead of the floods) was not actionable…(and) evacuating residents and pilgrims in the peak pilgrim season was impractical.”

He skirted allegations that unsustainable tourism development on the steep hill slopes coupled with forest denudation for the construction of numeours dams across rivers in landslide prone areas were largely to blame for the catastrophe.

Nor did he respond to activists’ long-standing grievances over mismanagement in disaster preparedness at the state government level.

Despite the Government of India approving a budget for a Doppler Weather Radar system capable of predicting a cloudburst, the state government has not granted the necessary land to house the forecasting equipment, effectively prioritising tourism development over disaster management.

Money for the acquisition of 200 satellite phones for the NDRF is also mired in bureaucratic delays, officials admit.

Being plugged in to a vast network of state and district-level offices, the NDMA should have monitored dam discharge, identified arterial routes for evacuation, stocked up on emergency supplies, created communication hubs and kept ambulances on standby in preparation for responding rapidly to forecasts.

Instead, the agency was caught off guard with barely minutes to prepare for the crisis.

The Central Water Commission, authorised to issue flood forecasts in India, failed to raise the alarm even on the night of Jun. 17 when the Mandakini River was already in full spate.

The CWC’s director of the flood forecast monitoring directorate, V.D. Roy, told IPS this was due to the fact that the raging water was technically “below the statutory warning level of 539 metres at (11 p.m.) on Jun. 17.”

But scientists and advocates refute this claim, insisting that the Commission ought to have foreseen the calamity heading for the most vulnerable regions of Uttarakhand like Uttarkashi, Hemkhund Sahib and Kedarnath.

Others accuse the government of failing to utilise India’s massive media apparatus to minimise the tragedy.

“Weather reports are disseminated to all public broadcasters, such as All India Radio and Doordarshan. If there is a specific warning, all broadcasters…should interrupt normal programming to disseminate this warning. This protocol must be developed and put in place,” NDMA Vice Chairman Shashidhar Reddy told IPS.

*Malini Shankar is a photojournalist, radio broadcaster and documentary filmmaker based in Bangalore, India.

The Indian Defence Force rescues a pilgrim after the floods in the northern state of Uttarakhand. Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS

By Sujoy Dhar
NEW DELHI, Jun 27 2013 (IPS)

On the outskirts of Rudraprayag, a town in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand whose many temples draw tourists and Hindu pilgrims with magnetic force, visitors often stop for a meal at a popular hotel built right on the river Alakananda.

One of the two head streams of the Ganga, the holy lifeline of India that gushes from the Gomukh snout of the massive Gangotri glacier in the Himalayas, Alakananda is revered as a goddess.

A night in the hotel is cheap, and budget tourists from home and abroad come here for the breathtaking view from balconies overlooking the mountains and glaciers that comprise 90 percent of the state.

As idyllic as it sounds, this hotel unwittingly played a role in one of the worst natural disasters the state has ever seen when, on Jun. 15, flash floods caused by a cloudburst and glacial leaks swept thousands of unsuspecting pilgrims away in what scientists are now referring to as a ‘Himalayan tsunami’.

The state’s chief minister said Thursday that the death toll could exceed 1,000, with 300 bodies found just this morning buried beneath silt beside the largest temple in the town of Kedarnath.

Countless tourists were trapped for days in pitiable conditions until the Indian Defence Force came to their rescue in one aerial sortie after another.

Thousands are still missing and many towns and pilgrimage sites remain inaccessible, as the raging waters carried away whole strips of roads, along with homes, shops and hapless victims.

As the government scrambles to complete a haphazard rescue operation, environmentalists are taking a step back, pointing out that the disaster was not simply a freak natural hazard but a result of unbridled development in the Land of the Gods.

Hydropower projects 

For years, a booming tourist industry, made possible by thousands of illegally constructed guesthouses, has spawned massive hydroelectric power projects on the rivers, while other infrastructure development designed to accommodate hoards of visitors has proceeded at a steady clip, putting undue stress on this fragile ecological zone.

Scientists also say the damming of the Ganga, riverbed encroachment and mining activities are wreaking havoc on the region.

“There (have been) no credible environmental or social impact assessments for hundreds of projects,” Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, tells IPS.

According to Mallika Bhanot, member of Ganga Ahvaan, a public forum to save the holy river, about 244 dams are being constructed along the water channel, while only three were cancelled after a 100-km stretch, from the glacial mouth of Gomukh to Uttarkashi town, was declared an eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) in December 2012.

“Even that notification by the government in New Delhi has been opposed by the Uttarakhand government,” Bhanot tells IPS, despite the fact that it was designed after a thorough assessment of the topography, and with the intention of preserving human lives in a landslide-prone zone.

Frightening footage of the recent disaster captured multi-storey buildings collapsing into the river like a pack of cards, while cars, bridges and shops were easily swept into the vortex. Activists say all of this could have been prevented if the state government had heeded the call to cease construction and encroachment on the riverbed.

The New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has also traced the link between the disaster and the manner in which development has been carried out in this unique region.

Acknowledging the economic importance of energy generation, CSE Director-General Sunita Narain questions whether or not “the Central or state government ever considered the cumulative impact of the hydropower projects on the rivers and the mountains.”

“Currently, there are roughly 70 projects built or (slated to be built) on the Ganga, expected to generate some 10,000 megawatts (MW) of power,” she told IPS.

She referred to this model as “bumper to bumper development”, with one project immediately following another.

Diversion channels and reservoirs will affect 80 percent of the Bhagirathi, the Ganga’s second head stream, and 65 percent of the Alakananda, Narain stressed. During the dry season, large stretches of the river will be completely dry.

Such activities, she said, are fantastically lucrative for developers, making it next to impossible for small environmental groups to have their voices heard.

“There is a strong construction lobby in Uttarakhand,” said Bhanot, adding that many politicians’ election funds come directly from hydropower projects.

Green alternatives abound, including electricity generation using smoke from burning pine needles to propel turbines; biomass; or mini hydro plants, capable of generating two MW of power. But these, less profitable schemes do not sit well with corporations.

Narain says this particular disaster cannot be attributed solely to climate change, but the growing trend of intense and extreme weather events – particularly a heavier, more unpredictable monsoon – is undeniable.

With climate change widely acknowledged to be the result of the burning of fossil fuels and emission of excessive carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it is clear that the ongoing tragedy is human-induced, Thakkar said.

The glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) that poured down the mountains bringing boulders and rocks is just another sign that the delicate balance of nature’s forces has been disrupted – and Uttarakhand is paying the price.

Regulation required

Tourism may form the backbone of Uttarakhand’s economy, but it is now clear that visitors and pilgrims number too many: according to government data, 42.2 million domestic tourists and 227,000 foreigners flocked to Uttarakhand in 2012.

Those numbers are expected to double by 2017, with the state gearing up to welcome 77.7 million domestic travelers and nearly 400,000 foreigners.

These arrivals will be accompanied not only by increased human waste and pollution from transport, but also by endless construction of hotels and the justification of ever more mega development projects.

Experts like Thakkar insist that the sector be regulated based on a proper scientific assessment of the region.

This will not be easy, since tourism brings much-needed revenue to the state. The government estimates that each tourist spends an average of 38 dollars a day, much of which goes directly to the government via entrance fees for religious sites.

But while this income from “religious and cultural tourism is a lifeline for many, it will not be sustainable…(unless) all development activities take into account the vulnerability of the area,” Thakkar says.

The youngest mountain range in the world, the Himalayas are already prone to erosion, landslides and seismic activity.

“Development cannot come at the cost of the environment in any region of the country; but particularly not in the Himalayas,” Narain stressed.

Experts warn that climate change is responsible for melting glaciers on the Himalayas. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
JHIRPU PHULPINGKATT, Nepal , Jun 2 2013 (IPS)

Residents of Jhirpu Phulpingkatt, a village nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, about 110 km from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, are on red alert.

As the impacts of climate change batter the towering mountains above them, these villagers on the banks of the Bhote Koshi river have started to dread the sound of incoming text messages, which may carry evacuation warnings.

Their fears are not unfounded. Research conducted by experts from the University of Milan shows that the snowline in the Everest region of the Himalayas, also known as the Khumbu region in the northeast of Nepal, has receded by 180 metres in the last 50 years, while glaciers have shrunk by 13 percent.

Last week all eyes were on the Himalayas’ highest peak – 29,000-foot Mt. Everest, whose summit is bisected by the China-Nepal border – in honor of the 60^th anniversary of the first human ascent of the mountain.

But the momentous occasion presented as much cause for panic as for celebration, when images showing bare rock jutting out from under the receding ice caps called attention to the rapidly changing face of this majestic range.

Sudeep Thakuri, who led the Italian team of researchers, told IPS that the continuous and increased melting is most likely caused by rising temperatures, which were 0.6-degrees Celsius higher this year than they have been in previous years.

Together, the two phenomena have led to the proliferation of massive glacier lakes – melting ice held back by natural dams of moraine and debris – that could spell disaster for those living in the rocky ravines down below.

Avalanches, erosion, heavy water pressure and even snowstorms could cause glacial outbursts, “releasing millions of cubic metres of water in a few hours (resulting in) catastrophic flooding downstream”, according to a study by Germanwatch, an NGO dedicated to sustainable development.

Glacier lake outbursts are not uncommon, and over the last century scientists have recorded at least 50 incidents of these icy lakes breaking their dams. One of the most devastating incidents occurred when the Sangwang Cho glacial lake in Tibet burst in 1954, flooding the cities of Gyangze (located 120 km downstream), and Xigaze (about 200 km away).

Now experts warn that the lakes are filling up faster than ever before and new lakes are being created at an alarming rate.

“If climate warming continues, as is predicted, accelerated glacial thinning and retreat are likely,” Pradeep Mool, programme coordinator at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, told IPS, warning that “the danger posed by glacial lake outburst floods will increase.”

According to ICIMOD research, there are over 20,000 glacial lakes in the Hindu Kush Himalayas, stretching from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar (formerly Burma) in the east.

The Dudh Kosi river basin in eastern Nepal is home to 278 glaciers, some of which are receding at a rate of 74 metres annually. Mool told IPS that the region is now home to 34 lakes, including 24 recent formations, of which ten have been tagged as potentially dangerous.

Mool warned that earthquakes also pose a serious threat. “The Hindu Kush Himalaya region is one of extreme seismic instability. Earthquakes could act as major triggers for glacial lake outbursts,” he stressed.

There has been at least one reported lake outburst in the last 500 years in the Seti Khola region that was triggered by seismic activity, the scientist said. That outburst produced a 50-metre-high debris field in the western region of Pokhara.

According to Thakuri, the future wellbeing of glaciers is largely dependent on the climate, adding that much more concrete scientific research is required to determine possible outcomes.

But those living in the Himalayan foothills, like the villagers of Jhirpu Phulpingkatt, say there is evidence enough of the possible disasters to come.

The steep mountain walls in this village, mostly covered in lush vegetation, are frequently disrupted by deep cave-ins caused by earth slips that follow heavy rains.

At the small power plant that lies just next to the Bhote Koshi river, officials rely on a warning system to give residents adequate notice to escape any lake outbursts.

However the plant’s acting manager, Janak Raj Pant, told IPS that the warning would only give an escape window of between six and 10 minutes, and extends only to the Nepali border, which is just 10 km from the plant. But many of the glacial lakes that could impact this village and others lie in Chinese-controlled Tibet, where the warning system does not reach.

ICIMOD’s Mool told IPS there is an urgent need for better monitoring of lakes and their water levels. He pointed to a few isolated examples in which outlets have been cut into the dams of some glacial lakes in Nepal and Bhutan to let out excess water, but Mool said such preventive action needed be more uniform.

There is also an economic imperative to take action, at least in the Bhote Koshi valley, where Nepali authorities are planning to build at least four new power plants on the river.