Study - Indus, Ganges, Bramaphutra Rivers May Dry Up As Glaciers Melt

[hatrack]

New Delhi, India : "Glaciers feeding the Ganga, Yamuna, Indus and the Brahmaputra rivers may be wiped out in 40 years, impacting the economic, cultural and spiritual life of India, warn scientists. The warning bells were sounded in the first report on melting glaciers and their impact by Sagarmatha - the Snow and Glacier Aspects of Water Resources Management in the Himalaya - presented here Tuesday.

Sagarmatha, commissioned by Britain's Department for International Development (DFID), gives a decade-by-decade analysis for Indian rivers over the next 100 years. The study warns that global warming will result in increased glacial waters in the next 40 years - and then the shortfall of the precious resource will begin.

EDIT

According to the study, the upper Indus over the first few decades will have plus 14 percent to plus 90 percent increase, after which there will be a drastic fall to as low as 30-90 percent below the baseline level by decade 10.


The Kaligandaki basin in the east, however, contrasts in behaviour. The decadal mean flow shows an increase throughout the next 100 years; the most extreme temperature scenario attaining a peak mean flow of between plus 30 percent and plus 90 percent. For the Ganga, near its headwaters in Uttarkashi, the flow is predicted to peak at plus 25 to plus 33 percent of baseline level within the first two decades and then recede to as low as minus 50 percent of the baseline by the sixth decade."

EDIT

http://www.keralanext.com/news/index.asp?id=34755

[gate of the sun]

1. I don't know if I will be alive

when the shit hits the fan but my 4 year old will. Sometimes I'm sorry I brought him into this potential future that is looming in the future. Too bad as a world community we are not ready to do what we can now to help each other and the world.

[Oggy]

2. I worry too

About my 6 month old daughter. All I know is we have to do what we can ourselves, so we can can look our children in the eye and say we did our best.

[gate of the sun]

3. I agree

we have to do the best we can. MY son watched the Land before Time and I tell him the earth is going through changes again.....I try to prepare him in a non scary way. When we go hiking in the woods we teach him about edible plants. I know it may seem weird but I don't know what the future will be and how soon it will get here. We also grow a small garden and are hoping to get a farm, using solar etc. I want to teach him self sufficiency and how to do things alternatively. It's a good way to live even if the future is peachy.

[Oggy]

4. I also agree

I just want to get through the next year and then my wife and I plan to move to the country, grow our own veg etc. I'm practicing with herbs ( real herbs like thyme etc ) in our city garden at the moment.