Early warning systems are being installed across wide stretches of high mountain ranges in an area including the spectacular western Himalayas, as new research finds about half of an estimated 15mn people globally at risk from glacial lake flooding are living in India, Pakistan, Nepal and China.
Glaciers are sensitive to rising temperatures, and “glacial lake outburst floods” from the melting ice are a “major hazard and can result in significant loss of life,” a paper published in the journal Nature recently concluded.
“The continued ice loss and expansion of glacial lakes due to climate change . . . represents a globally important natural hazard that requires urgent attention if future loss of life from [outburst floods] is to be minimised,” they said. The floods could be “highly destructive and can arrive with little prior warning.”
Pakistan, which suffered devastating flooding last year during the monsoon season, was among the particularly vulnerable countries, researchers said.
The melting of glaciers in northern Pakistan as global temperatures rise has created more than 3,000 glacial lakes in the region, 33 of which are “hazardous and likely to result in glacial lake outburst floods,” the UN Development Programme says.
The Gilgit-Baltistan area of Pakistan, home to some of the world’s highest mountain ranges including the Himalayas and Karakoram ranges, is the centre of a UNDP project to monitor and alert people to potential glacial lake floods, under a $37.5mn resilience programme expected to be completed in 2024.
The UNDP estimates that around a quarter of the population in the vulnerable areas are also below the poverty line.
An Italian training team from the CAE Spa company, which specialises in hazard monitoring and early warning systems, has been in the region in the past month, working with local authorities on the current stage of the project across 24 valleys, for completion by September this year.
Climate change has fuelled a rapid growth in the number and size of glacial lakes since 1990, with the number of people living downstream of the lakes also rising, according to the paper published by Nature. Communities living in high mountainous regions were particularly exposed.
The risk of flooding from a glacial lake in Peru is also at the heart of a high profile legal case in which a farmer is suing the energy giant RWE, which he claims contributed to climate change and should help pay for flood defences for the town of Huaraz. The town’s population has increased by more than 100,000 since 1941, the paper said.
The research on glacial lakes stressed the importance of early warning systems and evacuation routes as the onset of floods could be rapid and leave little time to warn people living downstream of the lake.
A rise in agriculture and tourism in areas close to glacial lakes was expected to continue, and the number of people living in the potential flood risk zones was likely to grow as a result, they said.
