Read the full study here. The approval comes without the site visits required by Indian environmental law. This will enhance the power generation potential of all these downstream projects during the lean flow months. Concern has been expressed over impacts on biodiversity and villages which will be flooded. Based on the Environment Impact Assessment EIA of the project conducted in July , the project will effect 18 hamlets across 14, hectares that house over 17, people. About 1, hectares of forest land will also be cleared. The project site is within 10 kilometers from the Kishtwar High Altitude National Park, a nationally protected park with rich biodiversity and glaciers.
The EIA indicates that the dam could impede the seasonal migratory path of fish, affecting endemic fish species and spawning grounds. This necessitates a site visit and an environmental clearance from the MoEFF.
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However, the project was approved without the site visit, sparking public outrage. Since the Marusudar basin contains many glaciers, issues of climate change and glacier retreat should also have been considered for planning the project. According to research , projections indicate greater warming in the upper Indus, and greater warming in winter than in the other seasons, suggesting a possibility of increased meltwater. In terms of rainfall, the change is not uniform with a forecasted increase in precipitation over the upper Indus basin and decrease over the lower Indus basin.
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Overall, there seems to be much uncertainty with regard to changes in future discharge and whether it will affect the dam operations. Moreover, the dam is tied up in the tense negotiations between India and Pakistan over the Indus River basin. Based on the Indus Water Treaty, India must allow 80 percent of the water flow into the lower riparian state of Pakistan.
The Bursar Project might further reduce discharge flowing into Pakistan. However, an Indian official, who prefers to remain anonymous, is confident that the project will not violate the principles of the Indus Water Treaty and reduce river discharge to Pakistan. It is a region dominated by curtains of clouds, rocks, glacier ice, and snow, as well as pastoralists and their sheep.
But who are we kidding? The sign cautions drivers about sharp bends over the next 62 kilometers.
The most abundant marine mammal species in these fjords is the ringed seal. In this study, we used isotopic data from whiskers of two cohorts of adult ringed seals to determine whether signals of ecosystem changes were detectable in this top marine predator. Find out more about ringed seals here. Effective mitigation policies require an understanding of the impacts and local responses to extreme events, which is limited in Pakistan.
This study revealed the adaptation measures adopted in Pakistan, and that the local policies on disaster management need to be improved to address the barriers to the adoption of advanced level adaptation measures. Find out more about flood risk mitigation in Pakistan here.
The Effects of Weapons on Ecosystems
Knowledge of future changes in the FLH is crucial to estimating changes in glacier extents. Glaciers may continue shrinking considerably, and the consequences of vanishing glaciers are especially severe where people have only limited capacity to adapt to changes in the water availability due to, for instance, lack of financial resources.
Find out more about freezing levels in Peru here. A recent study in Nature by Hamish Pritchard, a glaciologist at Cambridge University and researcher for the British Antarctic Survey, shows that the high mountains of Asia, including the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush, and Karakoram, are being greatly affected by global warming. In some areas of the Himalayan region, for example, temperatures have risen faster than the global average. From to , the average annual mean temperature in the region increased by 1. Even though studies on the high mountains of Asia are incomplete, it is believed that the mountains will lose half of their ice in the next 30 years.
This glacial loss has consequences for Asia as the glaciers provide an important ecosystem service to million people by acting as a regional buffer against drought and providing summer meltwater to rivers and aquifers. If the glaciers in the eastern and central Himalayas disappear by , the ecosystem service protecting against drought would be lost. Despite the fact that glaciers can promote drought resiliency, the surrounding areas would be particularly vulnerable to water scarcity because the glaciers will not supply enough meltwater to maintain the rivers and streams at adequate levels.
Lack of water could lead to devastating food shortages and malnutrition, further impacting the economy and public health. Based on a projected estimate of glacier area in , it is thought that declining water availability will eventually threaten some 70 million people with food insecurity. Droughts in the Himalayan region have already resulted in more than 6 million deaths over the past century. Glacier loss would only add to drought-related water stress in the region, impacting a surrounding million people. It could result in social instability, conflict, and migrations of populations. If the glaciers were to vanish, the amount of water during the summer would decrease by 38 percent in the upper Indus basin on average and up to 58 percent in drought conditions.
The loss of summer meltwater would have its greatest effects on the municipal and industrial needs of Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, with water stress being classified as medium to extremely high.
United Nations Environment Programme
Additionally, decreased meltwater would further affect upstream countries such as Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Nepal that rely on hydropower. Pritchard presents data that show how much the glacier meltwater contributes to different regions within Asia during drought. Some areas, such as the Aral Sea, rely exclusively on the glacier water during the drought months. The glaciers provide meltwater when rainfall is minimal or nonexistent under drought conditions because glaciers store precipitation for decades to centuries as ice, which then flows to lower altitudes when melting in the summer.
Twila Moon, a postdoctoral research associate at the U. National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado, recently discussed the consequences of global glacier volume loss on populations worldwide in Science magazine.
As temperatures continue to rise, the surrounding regions will begin to lose their source of water for food, agriculture and survival. Due to inadequate scientific studies and evidence, the trends and status of glaciers in the Himalayas and other ranges are not being sufficiently observed and recorded.
A lack of adequate monitoring of the glaciers means political action to adapt to the foreseen changes will be limited. Read an interview with Khan here. Samar Khan, cyclist Source: YouTube. In addition to showing the landscapes of Greenland on Street View, Google also put together a time-lapse showing how snow and ice coverage has changed over recent years.
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Read more about their work here. Data from Planet is even enabling the monitoring of glaciers. Read more about this work here. The activists hope to inspire people at every level around the world, and Pakistan in particular, to stand up and take some substantial steps in addressing the issues of global warming and climate change. Read more about the expedition here. Water security is a pervasive issue in Pakistan, a largely arid country. The majority of the country receives less than mm of rain per year, while a small region in the north receives upwards of mm per year.
Last month, the United Nations Development Programme released a Development Advocate Pakistan report that describes the uncertain future of water in Pakistan, which is impacted by changing climate and melting glaciers, as well as political issues with neighboring India. They advise increasing public awareness because the lack of trust stems in part from incomplete access to data and information. They also recommend high efficiency irrigation systems and updating academic curriculum in the country to include sustainable development. As the report describes, the region of Gilgit-Baltistan in northern Pakistan provides most of the water in the glaciated parts of the country.
Altitudes exceed meters with annual snowfall of approximately millimeters in the highest regions. This zone is the largest area of perennial glaciers outside the polar regions; nearly one third of the Gilgit-Baltistan area is glaciated. The variability of river flows as a result of monsoon seasons has led to water crises and conflicts between provinces, as well as neighboring countries. The Indus Water Treaty has allowed for peaceful relations between Pakistan and its neighbor India for the past 40 years.
However, the increased water stress in the Indus River basin since the early s has strained the treaty. The coverage of the issue by Pakistani newspapers is sparser. The treaty itself fails to address two important issues.