Himalayan
region has the largest concentration of glaciers outside the polar caps, as
this region is aptly called the “Water Tower of Asia” is the source of the 10 major river systems that provide irrigation,
power and drinking water for over 700 million people live in India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh– nearly 10% of the world’s population. Understanding the
behaviour of these glaciers and their contribution to the sustainable supply of
water for mankind and agriculture is one of the grand challenges of Indian
scientific community.
As
part of the Indian government’s initiatives to better study and quantify the
Himalayan glacier responses towards the climate change, National Centre for
Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), Goa, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences
has established a high altitude
research station in Himalaya called HIMANSH (literally meaning, a slice of
ice), situated above 13,500 ft (> 4000 m) at a remote region in Spiti,
Himachal Pradesh.
The
station was unveiled by Dr. M. Rajeevan, Secretary to the Ministry of Earth
Sciences, Govt of India, on Sunday 9th October 2016, in presence of
Dr. M. Ravichandran, Director of National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean
Research. The station houses many instruments to quantify the glacier melting
and its relation to changing climate. Some of the instruments that are
available at this research facility include, Automatic Weather Stations for weather monitoring, water
level recorder for quantifying the glacier melt, ground penetrating radar to
know the thickness of glaciers, geodetic GPS systems to study the glacier
movements, snow fork for studying snow thickness, steam drill, snow corer,
temperature profilers, as well as various glaciological tools. Further, the
researchers would be using this as a base for undertaking surveys using
Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) that would
digitize the glacier motion and snow cover variations with exceptional
precision.
The
ongoing initiatives by NCAOR would contribute to the integrated study the
glaciers in the upper Indus basin (Chandra basin) in Himachal Pradesh and their
contribution to discharge. According
to the UN data, the contribution of
snow/glacier melt in annual stream runoff is substantially higher (>40%) in
Indus basin as compared to Ganga and Brahmaputra basins (<10%). Therefore, understanding the glacier
mass balance and their contribution to the Indus River is more critical than
other basins towards the understanding on the impact of glacier retreat on the
water cycle in the northern India and Pakistan. Some of the bench mark glaciers
that are already being studied under this project include Bada Shigri, Samudra Tapu, Sutri Dhaka, Batal,
Gepang Gath and Kunzam. An
integrated study using glaciological, geodetic, glacio-hydrological methods
will shed light on the glacier response to the changing climate in this region
and will also quantify the contribution from glacial melt water to the river
discharge in Indus basin. “Himansh” will provide the much needed fillip to the
scientific research on Himalayan glaciers and its hydrological contribution.
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