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10 Feb 2025 13:58
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  •   Home > News > International

    Vanishing glaciers of the Himalayas

    Glaciers across the Himalayas are melting at an unprecedented rate, threatening the water supply of rural villages living along the ancient mountain range.


    Himalayan villages are facing a water crisis as the world's "third pole" melts.

    Carrying a twine basket of manure to a nearby field, northern Indian villager Sonam Yangdon lives a world away from polluting cities and industries.

    Her face is hardened by countless days of manual labour in the high-altitude sun. But for her, the consequences of rising global temperatures are easy to see.

    "When I was a child, there was plenty of snow on the glacier, but now it has vanished because of reduced snowfall," she said.

    A village on the brink

    Ms Yangdon is one of the few residents left in Upper Kumik — situated in India's northern mountain region of Ladakh.

    The rest have already abandoned their homes, as the supply of meltwater from the nearby glacier dwindles.

    "I don't have the strength to leave my home, but everyone is being forced to move," Ms Yangdon said.

    Upper Kumik sits in the Zanskar Valley and is believed to be the area's oldest settlement, and may soon be the first to be lost to climate change.

    Local sheep farmer Stanzin Shedup said residents were resettling to the valley floor, beside a river with a stable water supply.

    "We don't want to leave our village, it's our home town," he said.

    "We have our childhood over here, we have our grandparents who built our homes and built our fields."

    Mr Shedup said the remaining villagers were too poor to relocate but were trying to adapt by building irrigation channels and catchments for the remaining glacial water.

    "The melting glacier is a message to each and every village in the Himalayan region that they will have to move to a better water source one day."

    Rural communities across the region of Ladakh are facing water shortages, as many glaciers melt at an alarming pace.

    The Earth's 'third pole' is melting

    Western Asia's Hindu Kush Himalaya region is informally known as the world's "third pole".

    Fresh water from its glaciers feeds some of the world's biggest and most populated river basins, such as the Indus and Ganges rivers.

    Data from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) predicts the region's glaciers to lose 75 per cent of their volume by 2100.

    "We've seen a pattern of decreasing amounts and persistence of snow across the Hindu Kush Himalaya, with 13 of the past 22 years registering lower-than-normal seasonal snow persistence," ICIMOD cryosphere specialist Sher Muhammad said.

    ICIMOD warns of the dire consequences this thaw could have for almost 2 billion people relying on downstream rivers.

    'Water is life'

    In Ladakh's regional capital of Leh, environmental researcher Jigmet Katpa is already realising those consequences.

    "Who will be willing to stay in a water-scarce region, who can survive without water?" she asked.

    "Water is life."

    She has spent recent years studying the region's changing water cycle and visiting affected villages.

    Ms Katpa said Ladakh's population was shifting from rural to urban areas because of the emerging water crisis.

    In the city of Leh, Ms Katpa said the population growth had created another issue with groundwater pollution.

    "The groundwater is used and abused in terms of quantity and quality," she said.

    Without a major shift in the area's water management strategies, or global emissions, Ms Katpa said the region's future looked bleak.

    "Whatever is happening in the climate, mountain people will be the first to pay the price."


    ABC




    © 2025 ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved

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