The HKH Snow Update 2025 highlights a significant decline in seasonal snow across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, with snow persistence 23.6% below normal — the lowest in 23 years. This trend, now in its third consecutive year, threatens water security for nearly two billion people. All twelve major river …
The Himalayas are depicted in popular iconography as the tough guys who stand tall—tallest, actually—protecting the subcontinent from invasions, both human and climatic. They command the monsoon clouds to rain over the subcontinent, bringing sustenance. There is just one little, but crucial, error in this imagery. The Himalayas are anything …
Technologists have prepared a road map for building a sun-charged, smarter direct current (DC) power micro grid system that suits the power sector, mainly in the ecologically sensitive Himalayas. “This system will be secure from terrorist and virus attacks, stable, low cost and reliable for sustainable energy sector in the …
Report favours hydro projects but fails to give blueprint for balanced environmental needs and viability of Ganga as a water system The recommendations of the Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) on hydropower projects set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the Himalayan headwaters of the Ganga seemed to have failed to …
Heavy rainfall has wreaked havoc on the region because of the fragile nature of the Himalayan range and poor soil stability in its steep slopes. But it is mand-made factors that have compounded the scale of the disaster. Read this special report by Down To Earth.
We need to think about a pan-Himalayan development strategy which is based on the region's natural resources, culture and traditional knowledge - An interview with Sunita Narain.
An important challenge in geomorphology is the reconciliation of the high fluvial incision rates observed in tectonically active mountain ranges with the long-term preservation of significant mountain-range relief in ancient, tectonically inactive orogenic belts. River bedrock erosion and sediment transport are widely recognized to be the principal controls on the …
It’s clear that the devastation caused by the flash floods and landslides in Uttarakhand was at least in part due to environmental degradation of fragile mountain slopes and reckless commercialization. Yet, weeks before the calamity — during a meeting in Delhi with plan panel deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on …
As receding glaciers form new lakes across the Himalayan frontier, a new dimension has been added to the strategic paradigm. Geological and climatic considerations apart, many of these lakes lie close to the border and may well be used to trigger floods downstream. While dozens of lakes have come up …
Cataclysmic floods in the northern state of Uttarakhand are reminder India must act to save its fragile mountains Natural disasters often follow a predictable path in India. A flood or an earthquake happens every few years, the government blames the vagaries of nature, the right sympathetic noises are made, and …
NEW DELHI: While thousands have suffered the fury of floods in Uttarakhand, experts say worse tragedies may strike the region unless the rampant violation of the Himalayan state's sensitive ecology is checked. Environmentalists blamed the volume of the disaster on the dams, indiscriminate construction, uncontrolled tourism and ignorance about the …
Could the Uttarakhand tragedy have been avoided, or at least minimised? There is no simple answer. Environmentalists describe the death and damage as a man-made disaster while geologists say the extent of destruction could have been far lesser if stricter regulations had been put in place and the authorities equipped …
Ecologists point out that the huge expansion of hydro-power projects and construction of roads to cope with the lakhs of tourists in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh has compounded the scale of the disaster. Sunita Narain, director general of Centre for Science and Environment said, “This is very much a man-made …
As the death toll in Uttarakhand mounts and rescue operations continue in various parts of the Himalayan state, environmentalists have been blaming the successive governments ruling the ecologically sensitive region as well as the Centre for the disaster. They claimed that the recent flash floods in the state that ravaged …
ALLAHABAD: Samajwadi Party (SP) national general secretary and Allahabad MP Reoti Raman Singh on Tuesday castigated the Prime Minister for his failure in stopping Uttarakhand government's plan to construct dams on Ganga. He said that these dams were being constructed without addressing ecological concerns. Talking to reporters, the local MP …
As many as 4,699 lakes in the Indian Himalayan region at an altitude above 3000-m above mean sea level have been found in an ISRO study revealing the wonders of Himalayas. According to the first Atlas on High Altitude Lakes of the hills, the largest lake is Pangong Tso. It …
Acknowledge the fact that the present disaster management institutional policy and practices in India, although build on science and technology at it score, haven’t been able to harness the full potential of it by establishing innovative and effective institutional mechanisms which would facilitate real time and long term coordination between …
This paper reviews the literature on the potential biophysical and economic impacts of climate change in the Himalayas. Existing observations indicate that the temperature is rising at a higher rate in Nepal and Chinese regions of the Himalayas compared with rest of the Himalayas. A declining trend of monsoon in …
Rise in temperatures and a fall in the amount of precipitation in the Mount Everest region has led to a majority of mountain glaciers shrinking by 30 percent along with an upward movement of snowline by 180 metres in the last five decades, according to a new study conducted in …
Can you imagine Mount Everest without its snow and ice? The time may not be far away because researchers have found that glaciers in the Mount Everest region including the Sagarmatha national park that surrounds the peak, have shrunk by 13 percent in the last 50 years and the snowline …
The legal geopolitics of the Baglihar and Kishenganga hydroelectric power projects, whose legitimacy under the Indus Waters Treaty has been contested by Pakistan, demonstrates the political nature of technology and the governance of technology need not remain out-of-bounds for non-engineers. In attempting an understanding, this article seeks to step outside …
