01/10/2022 01:47 India Initiates Measures to Tackle Floods From Glacial Lake Outbursts in Himalayas – The Diplomat

THE PULSE | ENVIRONMENT | SOUTH ASIA

India Initiates
Measures to
Tackle Floods
From Glacial Lake
Outbursts in
Himalayas
Several Indian states are
vulnerable to glacial lake
outbursts as there are
9,575 glaciers in the
Himalayan region
contiguous to the country.

By Rajeev Bhattacharyya
September 30, 2022

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01/10/2022 01:47 India Initiates Measures to Tackle Floods From Glacial Lake Outbursts in Himalayas – The Diplomat

Glacial Lake in Sikkim, India

Credit: Credit – Rajeev Bhattacharyya

Recurring floods in the Himalayan region have

prompted the Indian government to initiate a
slew of measures to tackle disasters from
glacial lake outbursts.

In reply to a Parliamentary Standing

Committee on Water Resources query, the
Narendra Modi government has listed steps it
has initiated to deal with glacial lake outburst
floods (GLOF) in the country. Glacial lakes
have triggered floods occasionally in the
region with the deluge in Pakistan being the
most recent example.

The Ministry of Jal Shakti (Water Resources)

disclosed before the committee that the
Central Water Commission (CWC) has 46
existing meteorological observation stations in
the Himalayan region, 1,000 meters above
mean sea level out of which 35 stations are
telemetry-based stations. As many as 16 new
telemetry-based meteorological observation
stations have been proposed in the Himalayan
region, which are under various stages of
implementation.

The ministry pointed out that the Defense Geo-

informatics Research Establishment (DGRE)
has been working to enhance the number of
Automatic Weather Stations for forecasting
avalanches and landslides in a phased manner
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01/10/2022 01:47 India Initiates Measures to Tackle Floods From Glacial Lake Outbursts in Himalayas – The Diplomat

to increase the coverage area in the states of

Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim,
Arunachal Pradesh and in the union
territories of Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh.
It has already established three Mountain
Meteorological Centers in Ladakh, Jammu and
Kashmir and Uttarakhand for avalanche study.

Further, DGRE has joined hands with the Swiss

Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche
Research (SFISAR) to develop a model for
forecasting. A network of 35 Automatic
Weather Stations is to be built soon in the
border state of Sikkim to generate avalanche
forecast data for the armed forces.

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All these facilities, informed the ministry, are

in addition to the five meteorological and
discharge stations in the high-altitude regions
located 3,800 meters above sea level that
operates under the Wadia Institute of
Himalayan Geology (WIHG).

There are other government agencies to

monitor, predict and undertake research on
GLOF, landslide lake outburst flood (LLOF),
cloudburst flood, and so on, such as the
Geological Survey of India, Department of
Science and Technology, Defense Research and
Development Organization and the ministries
of Environment, Forests and Climate Change
and Earth Sciences.

Scientists and environmentalists believe that

the frequency of glacial lake outburst floods
(GLOF) could increase due to climate change.
New lakes are formed as the temperature
rises, existing ones expand and sometimes
they merge, enhancing the possibility of flood
volumes in the high mountains.

Several Indian states are considered

vulnerable as there are 9,575 glaciers in the

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01/10/2022 01:47 India Initiates Measures to Tackle Floods From Glacial Lake Outbursts in Himalayas – The Diplomat

Himalayan region contiguous to the country.

According to an estimate, over 200 of these are

susceptible to outbursts. Research by a group
of scientists last year found that the highest
GLOF risk currently is in the eastern
Himalayan region where the risk level is at
least twice that in adjacent regions. The
scientists were of the view that the possibility
of hazards in the future in this zone would
“almost triple” due to more lake formations.

In the Indian Himalayan region, the first GLOF

was reported in 1926 in Jammu and Kashmir.
In the 1980s, scientists observed two instances
of sudden emptying of moraine-dammed lakes
in Himachal Pradesh. In 2013, Uttarakhand
faced an unprecedented flood after the
Chorabari glacier melted, leaving a death toll
of more than 5,000 people.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee, which

was headed by Dr. Sanjay Jaiswal, expressed
concern over the impact of climate change on
glacier movement in the Indian Himalayan
region. “Recognizing and spotting dangerous
glacial lakes is very important so that all the
stakeholders i.e. planners, scientists,
academics, and the general public may evolve,
adopt and carry out suitable mitigation steps
such as monitoring, early warning,
evacuation, and relief and rehabilitation,” said
the report. The committee has submitted this
report to Parliament.

It has also recommended that the ministry

should make “concerted efforts” to set up and
widen the network of high-altitude
meteorological and discharge stations
equipped with modern technology including
Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery to
automatically detect changes in water bodies
and lake formations in the Indian Himalayan
region. It has told the ministry to work in
“close collaboration” with other agencies

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01/10/2022 01:47 India Initiates Measures to Tackle Floods From Glacial Lake Outbursts in Himalayas – The Diplomat

involved in glacial management and analyzing

the mountain hazards by sharing data with
them which the ministry has agreed.

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AUTHORS

CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR

Rajeev Bhattacharyya
Rajeev Bhattacharyya is a senior
journalist in Assam in India’s
northeast. 
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