J&K on powder keg of eco-disaster!
It was horrific to see an entire village buried under mudslides in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district a few days ago. It was heart wrenching how several people were desperately crying for help while others helplessly watched nature’s fury!
Five persons died in the incident while hundreds went missing. Many villages and roads vanished under mudslides. It was like a doomsday for people of high-altitude villages such as Dharali and Sukhi Top in Uttarkashi. The incident serves as a warning for other Himalayan areas due to frequent heavy rains causing flash floods.
Studies have revealed that climate change is a major cause of increasing frequency and intensity of cloudbursts. It is stated that warmer atmospheres have the capacity to hold more moisture and have the potential to create cloudbursts.
Studies have also blamed changing monsoon patterns besides warming oceans for altering regional weather systems, especially in South Asia. Extreme rainfall in India has risen by 20–50 per cent since 1950. This has led to an increase in cloudbursts in northern Himalayan areas. The destruction in Uttarkashi has exposed the fragility of the Himalayas.
Three million Indians live in areas where a Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF) could happen at any time. In Kedarnath area in Uttarakhand, an estimated 5700 people, mostly pilgrims, died on June 16, 2013, due to heavy rains, cloudburst, and outburst from Chorabari Lake.
On February 7, 2021, a part of the Nanda Devi Glacier broke off at Joshimath in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district, killing at least seven people and leaving around 150 missing and feared dead. The flash flood breached two hydropower projects near the Naina Devi National Park, about 300 km north of Dehradun.
Back to Jammu and Kashmir, who can forget how a series of cloudbursts on September 7, 2014 triggered devastating floods causing large-scale destruction of property.
The ecologically-fragile Jammu and Kashmir is most vulnerable to climate change among states in the Indian Himalayan Region. IHR, being an eco-fragile zone, the mountainous region is confronted with plethora of environmental challenges due to global warming, unplanned urbanisation, deforestation and vandalisation of water bodies.
Indicators of climate change area clearly visible in J&K which has been facing erratic weather patterns in last two decades— resulting in drought-like situations, flash floods, windstorms and cloudbursts.
What makes J&K more vulnerable to flash floods is fast retreating glaciers which has led to creation of glacial lakes in various mountain ranges of J&K and Ladakh making the Himalayan regions vulnerable to Glacial Lake Outburst Floods.
Glacial Lake Outburst Floods can be devastating for downstream populations due to sudden outburst of a glacial lake dammed by loose moraine material. GLOFs can be catastrophic – destroying downstream infrastructure, resulting in fatalities and affecting livelihoods of mountain communities.
Studies have revealed that GLOFs can be triggered by a host of geomorphic and meteorological factors. Besides earthquakes exacerbate the cryosphere-related hazard cascade processes including glacial lake failures translating into GLOFs and rock-ice avalanches.
Kolahoi, the largest glacier of Kashmir valley’s Jhelum Basin, is retreating rapidly due to a spurt in temperature triggered by global warming and extreme pollution. Thajiwas, Hoksar, Nehnar, Shishram, and glaciers around Harmukh are also retreating slowly. Melting glaciers erode land and fill up the space creating glacial lakes. Besides glacier recession, the prevailing warming scenario over the Himalaya makes communities and infrastructure more vulnerable to cryosphere-related hazards that were previously not experienced.
In the northwestern Himalayan regions of J&K and Ladakh, Leh and Kargil districts are more exposed to GLOF risk with 180 proglacial lakes most of which are expanding in area. Studies by Dr Irfan Rashid, senior assistant professor of Department of Geo-informatics, University of Kashmir (KU) have revealed that in Kashmir valley, two proglacial lakes in the upstream of Vishaw in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district are susceptible to GLOFs that might affect Asthal village downstream.
Gya village located some 74 km from Leh experienced moderate GLOFs in August 2016 affecting built-up and agriculture downstream. Another high-intensity GLOFs was experienced in Rumbak in Leh that destroyed three bridges and washed away several kilometers of roads in August 2021. While the number of proglacial lakes are high in Ladakh, downstream areas in Kashmir valley are more vulnerable owing to high population and greater area under infrastructure.
Melting of glaciers in the last over six decades has resulted in the emergence of a number of dammed glacial lakes in the mountainous glaciated terrain. There is a need to scientifically monitor these lakes by field and satellite-based studies and assess risk associated with the bursting of these dammed lakes.
Cloudbursts are becoming frequent in J&K. On July 10, flash floods damaged the Jammu–Pathankot railway line, derailing a goods train in Kathua. In early July, cloudbursts struck villages in Anantnag and Budgam, flooding homes and blocking roads. In late June, three people were killed and dozens displaced as cloudbursts and flash floods hit multiple districts including Rajouri, Poonch, Doda, Udhampur, Ramban, and Kathua.
There is a need to take mitigation measures to minimise losses in case of adverse weather conditions. J&K’s disaster management mechanism must be strengthened. We need to safeguard our hydropower and river engineering structures downstream to withstand disastrous surges of the water and debris associated with sudden bursting of the glacier lakes particularly in the Chenab valley where several hydropower projects are in operation.
J&K is literally sitting on a powder keg of eco-disaster! We need to not only prevent further damage to our eco-fragile environment, but have love and compassion to protect our natural resources as our survival is at stake! We must pass on our environment, without any damage, to our future generations as our ancestors passed it on to us!
Author is Executive Editor,
Greater Kashmir
