The Himalayas are approaching a tipping point as glaciers melt faster than a decade ago, \u200bthreatening water security as the region approaches \u201cpeak water\u201d by mid-century, \u200caccording to a study released this month.<\/p>\n
The findings come after the collapse of a Himalayan glacier in late August along the Nepal-Tibet border, which caused cascading landslides and \u200bflash floods in the valleys below. At least 1,300 people have \u200bbeen confirmed dead and more than 5,300 are missing across \u2060Nepal and China\u2019s Tibet region.<\/p>\n
As glaciers retreat, they are leaving behind \u200bunstable glacial lakes held back by little more than loose rock and \u200bice, above valleys where millions of people live, the study found.<\/p>\n
Reuters reported that the study was produced by Systemiq, a sustainability advisory firm, together with the Integrated Mountain Initiative, the International \u200bCentre for Integrated Mountain Development, and India\u2019s G.B. Pant National Institute \u200bof Himalayan Environment.<\/p>\n
Himalayan glacier mass loss had accelerated in recent decades, while only 21 \u200cglaciers \u2060were currently monitored on the ground out of an estimated 40,000 glaciers across the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region, a vast mountain system spanning eight countries from Afghanistan to Myanmar, the study found.<\/p>\n
Close to 200 glacial lakes in \u200bIndia had been identified \u200bas high \u2060risk, with 56 classified as \u201cvery high risk\u201d, leaving millions exposed downstream.<\/p>\n
As the region neared \u201cpeak water\u201d, the point when \u200briver flows stop rising and start declining, it would \u200bhave profound \u2060implications for water security. As the Himalayas underpinned more than 20% of India\u2019s GDP, the region made up a key piece of the country\u2019s national \u2060economic \u200binfrastructure, upon which hundreds of millions of \u200bpeople depended.<\/p>\n
Though making up around 18% of India\u2019s land, the Himalayan region accounted for roughly 35% \u200bof the country\u2019s natural disasters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Himalayas are approaching a tipping point as glaciers melt faster than a decade ago, \u200bthreatening water security as the region approaches \u201cpeak water\u201d by mid-century, \u200caccording to a study released this month. The findings come after the collapse of a Himalayan glacier in late August along the Nepal-Tibet border, which caused cascading landslides and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26481,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26477\/revisions\/26481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}