The recent landslide in February on a glacier in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli and subsequent floods and toll of human life and property has drawn our attention once again to the irony and stark reality of the fragility of the mighty Himalayas. A similar focus emerged when large scale devastation followed a bout of intense rain in 2013 in Kedarnath.
Unique landscape
The Himalayas are unique mountain systems from the climate change and natural hazards perspective for at least a few key reasons: they are the highest, the youngest, tectonically active and most geologically unstable mountains anywhere on earth.
They have substantial areas of permanent snow and glaciers (called the third pole of the world) with many temperate biodiversity elements and vegetation communities and yet they also have a strong tropical monsoonal hydro-climatology and have some of the highest rates of warming globally.
Third, the Himalayas have unique water sources such as springs that sustain remote…