Amidst a hue and cry of global warming causing glaciers to melt at a rapid pace, there's some soothing news for environment enthusiasts. A recent study by the National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) says that the receding pace of Gangotri glacier, one of the largest glaciers of the Himalayas, has slowed down during the last two years. "Although the Gangotri glacier is receding, the encouraging fact is that during the last two years, the retreating speed of the glacier has slowed down as compared to what it was in the last decade," says Dr Manohar Arora, in charge of the NIH study, 'hydrological analysis of the Gangotri Glacier'. "We have established a meteorological observatory and a gauging site near the snout of the Gangotri glacier and monitored the different types of hydrological and hydro-meteorological data during the ablation season for the last three years. The results show a receding trend of glacier melting," he asserts. "In order to simulate the stream flow, a simple conceptual hydrological model based on temperature index approach has been applied to observe water discharge at the gauging site of the Gangotri glacier. The model has simulated daily stream flow satisfactorily for all the years from which the present results have been derived," he says. The study points out that the maximum discharge is usually in the month of July followed by August. These two months contribute nearly 63 per cent of the total water discharge during the ablation season. "The Bhagirathi river originates from the snout of Gangotri glacier. Therefore an accurate assessment of the flow resulting due to melting of snow along with its distribution in time is vital for the planning and management of water resources projects," he adds. Arora said that data on rainfall, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, sunshine hours and evaporation was collected during the last three years during the ablation period (May-October). Observations were recorded round the clock at the gauging site with the help of automatic water-level recorder and wooden floats were used to compute the velocity of flow. "The cross-section area of the river was determined with the help of sounding rods in the beginning of the season and was rechecked at the end of the season. The observations of meteorological conditions represent dry weather conditions in the study area, he adds.