{"id":13950,"date":"2021-02-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/09-02-2021\/er-scarcity-likely-in-the-himalayan-catchment-if-warming-continues\/"},"modified":"2021-02-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T00:00:00","slug":"er-scarcity-likely-in-the-himalayan-catchment-if-warming-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/09-02-2021\/er-scarcity-likely-in-the-himalayan-catchment-if-warming-continues","title":{"rendered":"er scarcity likely in the Himalayan catchment if warming continues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In News<\/strong>: Himalayas may feel water scarcity, if drier and warmer scenarios continue in the near future (2031\u20132050).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key findings of the study published by IIT Bombay:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The study analysed the <strong>daily precipitation, maximum and minimum daily temperatures, wind speeds, land cover, elevation and soil properties<\/strong> of multiple Himalayan <strong>Rivers like Sutlej, Thulo Bheri, Kali Gandaki, Dudh Kosi and Arun<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Glacier-melt will increase to about 15% to 70% in a warmer environment with its present volume, but then will decrease to 3%\u201338% substantially when the glacier volumes shrink.\n<ul>\n<li>However, increased precipitation and moist environment may compensate for such a decrease.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Snowpacks and glaciers<\/strong> are two important water storage units in the Himalaya.<\/li>\n<li>Though snow has a lower density and will melt easily in a warming climate, the reduced snowfall will, in turn, reduce the amount of snow-melt.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Reasons behind the bulging problem of Water Scarcity in the Himalayas:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As per <strong>NITI Aayog 2018 report<\/strong>, nearly <strong>50% of Himalayan Springs have dried<\/strong> leading to the drier river system<\/li>\n<li><strong>Climate Change<\/strong>: Increasing temperature has an adverse impact on monsoon pattern and glacier volumes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Unplanned urbanisation<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>Nearly <strong>50% of the population of the Himalayas will become urban in the next 30 years from present-day 3%<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Water\u2019s demand-supply gap may double by 2050.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Disappearance of traditional water systems<\/strong> viz stone spouts, wells, and local water tanks<\/li>\n<li><strong>Development Projects and Dams<\/strong>: Char Dham and multiple rail and road projects and Dams have destabilised sedimentary slopes of Himalayas, triggering landslides and avalanches.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Government Initiatives regarding Himalayan Ecosystem:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem: <\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Started the Himalayas Climate Change Portal.<\/li>\n<li>An Initiative under the National Action Plan for Climate Change.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Housing Policy of 2011: <\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Provides guidelines on Construction on Mountainous Regions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>NMHS &#8211; National Mission on Himalayan Studies<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It is being implemented by the <strong>Ministry of Environment, Forest &#038; Climate Change (MoEF&#038;CC).<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Nodal and Serving hub is <strong>G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment (NIHE).<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Conclusion and Way Ahead:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Water-management and governance<\/strong> are the buzzwords in saving human settlements.<\/p>\n<p>Study of <strong>Changing patterns of precipitation systems<\/strong> (<strong>Indian Summer Monsoon and Western Disturbances<\/strong>) are essential for pre-preparedness for grim situations.<\/p>\n<p>Following schemes and programs can be scaled up and improvised to save Himalayan Ecosystem.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Dhara Vikas Yojana of Sikkim<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>National Spring Water Management Programme<\/strong> as proposed by NITI Aayog<\/li>\n<li><strong>Artificial Glaciers<\/strong> as prepared by Glacier man of India, Chewang Norphel in Ladakh<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Apart from the above measures, community participation and awareness will be the key to the successful conservation of Himalayan Water system.<\/p>\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:742px\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"background-color:#fce5cd; width:6.5in\">\n<p><strong>About Day Zero<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Day Zero is when <strong>most of the city&#8217;s taps will be switched off<\/strong>. It means <strong>almost all water resources are depleted<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Few places which have faced Day Zero: Cape Town (South Africa), Shimla, Chennai and many more.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/water-scarcity-likely-in-the-himalayan-catchment-if-warming-continues\/article33769372.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News: Himalayas may feel water scarcity, if drier and warmer scenarios continue in the near future (2031\u20132050). Key findings of the study published by IIT Bombay: The study analysed the daily precipitation, maximum and minimum daily temperatures, wind speeds, land cover, elevation and soil properties of multiple Himalayan Rivers like Sutlej, Thulo Bheri, Kali [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1587432current-affairs.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}