India Is Taking On The Challenge To Save Himalayan Glaciers – OpEd
In the vast expanse of north India, with population that surpasses those of Europe and United Kingdom combined, the scenario is grim and foreboding. As a result of accelerated atmospheric warming, the great Himalayan range, which feeds the main rivers, is losing snow and ice at an alarming rate, with glaciers losing their volumes.
“If steps are not taken to restore the Himalayan glaciers, the source of our perennial rivers, the next Maha Kumbh after 144 years may be held on sand as the sacred rivers of India may dry up,” said the Magsaysay award winner and education-reformist Sonam Wangchuk. Having campaigned globally for glacier preservation, he has been at the forefront in India highlighting the issue in the ‘Year of Glaciers’.
In fact in an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Wangchuk exhorted that India should take the lead as the Himalayas have the third largest deposit of ice and snow on Earth after the Arctic and Antarctica, fetching it the name ‘Third Pole’. “India needs to take a lead in glacier preservation as we have the Himalayas, and our sacred rivers such as the Ganga and Yamuna come out of them,” Wangchuk said. Stating that he is an admirer of the environment initiatives taken by Prime Minister Modi, especially the ‘Mission LiFE’ campaign, Wangchuk urged PM Modi to set up a commission to assess the state of Himalayan glaciers.
‘Glacier Preservation’, the theme for World Water Day 2025, is highlighting the vital role glaciers play in preserving freshwater supplies worldwide and the pressing need for conservation efforts in the face of climate change. Further, the United Nations has declared 2025 as the ‘International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation’ while commemorating March 21st as the annual ‘World Day for Glaciers’. The aim is to raise global awareness about glaciers, snow, and ice in the climate system and the water-cycle and also mitigate the water availability challenge especially for agriculture both in the hills and the North Indian plains.
Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, when launching the United Nations World Water Development Report 2025 titled ‘Mountains and Glaciers – Water Towers’, said “Regardless of where we live, we all depend in some way on mountains and glaciers. But these natural water towers are facing imminent peril. This report demonstrates the urgent need for action… to protect glaciers and ensure that they can continue sustaining life on Earth for future generations.” There is the urgency to improve mountain water governance through integrated river basin management, finance, and knowledge and capacity-building, to meet the world’s ever-growing demand for water.
The rate of change of glaciers today is the worst on record, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which published its annual State of the Climate report recently. The largest three-year loss of glacier mass on record occurred in the past three years, the study revealed.
‘Mountains and Glaciers -Water Towers’ has set off alarm-bells that accelerating glacier melt pose the risk of unleashing avalanches, with cascading impact on economies, eco-systems and communities, not just in mountain regions but on the plains across the developing and developed world. High mountain regions are the world’s water towers.
In Science journal (2023), David R Rounce and others shared their observations in the article ‘Global glacier change in the 21st century: Every increase in temperature matters’. Globally glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate, with ice loss accelerating over the recent two decades compared to previous decades. Within just 23 years starting in the year 2000, Earth’s more than 215,000 glaciers have lost an annual average of 273 gigatonnes of ice, with these losses accelerating by 36 per cent between 2012 and 2023 compared to the previous decade. More than 275,000 glaciers worldwide cover approximately 700,000 km. Together with ice sheets, glaciers store about 70% of the global freshwater resources.
“Depletion of glaciers threatens supplies to hundreds of millions of people who live downstream and depend on the release of water stored over past winters during the hottest and driest parts of the year,” says Caitlyn Florentine, Research Physical Scientist, U.S. Geological Survey. “In the short-term, glacier melt increases natural hazards like floods,” said Caitlyn, spelling out the warning in no uncertain terms.
In the vast expanse of north India, with population that surpasses those of Europe and United Kingdom combined, the scenario is grim and foreboding. As a result of accelerated atmospheric warming, the great Himalayan range, which feeds the main rivers, is losing snow and ice at an alarming rate, with glaciers losing their volumes. “This is resulting in an unstable range, prone to more landslips, flash floods and glacier burst floods. In the long run, as the snow and ice dries up, India’s perennial Himalayan rivers will run dry, causing an acute water crisis in north India,” environmentalists point out to policy-makers and decision-makers.
Ashwini Kumar Choubey, India’s Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) explained that “Government of India is committed to protecting the glaciers and has made efforts to reduce the impact through several adaptation and mitigation measures. A number of programmes under National Action Plan on Climate Change and R&D projects are being supported for studying Himalayan Glaciers under the National Mission for Sustaining Himalayan Ecosystem and National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change.”
There are several areas in the Himalayan states which have been declared as National Parks or Protected Areas, such as Gangotri National Park, Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, and Great Himalayan National Park. In addition, the Government of India through its various organizations such as Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Geological Survey of India and Indian Space Research Organization has been carrying out regular scientific studies to monitor the changes in Himalayan glaciers.
Resonating with the findings of the UN Report, and various other clarion calls from environmentalists, apex bodies in India like the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) have taken the responsibility of augmenting water availability for agriculture. Artificial glaciers are being supported for Ladakhi farmers and the focus has shifted towards mitigating the risks of devastation from glacial lake outburst floods or GLOFs.
Studies reveal that glacial lakes in the Hindu Kush-Karakoram-Himalaya (HKH) region — home to the world’s largest ice reserves outside the poles hence also referred to as the third pole— have grown by over 10% in area since 1990, with the Ganga river basin witnessing a 22% surge in lake numbers. Satellite analyses by expert agencies on lakes across the rivers Indus, Ganga, and Brahmaputra basins, confirm accelerated growth in high-altitude lakes due to rapid glacier melt. ISRO reported that 27% of Himalayan glacial lakes have expanded since 1984. Higher global temperatures have pushed lake formation to elevations above 5,500 meters, reflecting glacier retreat to higher altitudes.
With the UN agencies, Government of India bodies, civil society institutions and environmentalist now seemingly on the same frequency, the battle to save the health of the glaciers and adaptation measures to offset the risk has now begun in right earnest.
