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Ecology & Environment
Mahesh

13/05/24 13:14 PM IST

Sikkim flood was one of Asia’s worst climate disasters in 2023

In News
  • A glacial lake outburst flood in Sikkim in October 2023 led to the collapse of the Teesta III hydroelectric dam, killed more than 100 people, and affected thousands of others.
About GLOFs
  • A body of water influenced by glaciers is called a glacial lake.
  • As glaciers move, they erode the land underneath and the debris of rocks and soil scraped from the land from ridges called moraines.
  • Glacial lakes are mostly on the margins of glaciers and evolve from ice-contact lakes — where the lake is in touch with the ice — into distal lakes as the glaciers retreat.
  • Moraines or ice blocks can form natural boundaries that hold back water and convert it into lakes.
  • A glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) happens when this holding structure becomes weaker, allowing the water to rapidly gush out., causing downstream flooding.
  • Glacial ice is sensitive to changes in regional temperature, precipitation, and surface radiation.
  • When glacial ice melts, it affects sea level, regional water cycles, and creates hazards like GLOFs.
  • The High-Mountain Asia region, centred on the Tibetan plateau, holds the largest volume of ice outside the polar regions.
  • Satellite images in the aftermath from the National Remote Sensing Centre suggested around 1 sq. km of the glacier-fed lake had been drained, compared to its volume on September 28.
Glacial lakes expanding
  • Satellite images from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) of the catchments of Indian Himalayan river basins from 1984 to 2023 reveal significant change in the prevalence of glacial lakes.
  • Of 2,431 lakes larger than 10 ha identified in 2016-2017, 676 have notably expanded since 1984.
  • ISRO also said long-term change analyses of these lakes is essential to understand environmental impacts and develop risk-management and adaptation strategies in glacial environments.
  • One option is to not build critical infrastructure downstream from glacial lakes, but another is to build infrastructure that lessens the floods.
  • Adequate early warning systems and infrastructure that is built according to possible GLOFs are the most important actions to take.
Source- The Hindu

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