Only A Handful Of Rapidly Receding Himalayan Glaciers Monitored - CSM

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NEW DELHI – Billions of people in China and the Indian subcontinent rely on South Asia's Himalayan glaciers - the world's largest store of fresh water outside the polar ice caps. The massive ice floes feed seven of the world's greatest Asian rivers in one of the world's most densely populated regions. Yet as global climate change slowly melts glaciers from Africa to the Andes, scientists say the glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating at a rate of about 33 to 49 feet each year - faster than in any other part of the world.

In the Himalayas, the Gangotri Glacier, one of India's largest, is entitled to an even more dubious distinction. Recent studies reveal that the Gangotri, which forms a mass of ice about 18 miles long, is retreating at a rate of more than 100 feet a year. But according to government officials and environmental groups like Greenpeace, very little has been done in the way of a rigorous scientific study. Scientists are monitoring glacial melting on only a handful of the 7,000 glaciers that cover the Indian Himalayas.

And at such a rapid retreat, a gradual increase in droughts, flash floods, and landslides are not the only issue to worry about, say environmentalists. Justwhen power companies are planning more energy sources to power India's growing economy, a rising level of sediment in regional rivers is creating havoc for many grids.

"The power grid in Uttarkashi is constantly breaking down and that's because of the rise in sediment in the water being used at the hydro-power projects," says Joseph Thsetan Gergan from the WADIA Institute of Himalayan Glaciology, a part of the Indian Department of Science and Technology. "When the power breaks down, the people blame the Geological Survey of India or the Central Water Commission for not doing its work properly, but that's like thinking of digging a well when your house is already on fire."

EDIT

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0103/p07s02-sten.html

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