Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) Drowns Villages Along Its Path In The Central Himalayas

Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) Drowns Villages Along Its Path In The Central Himalayas

Featured Image: Gori Ganga River near Munisiari, Pithoragarh district, Uttarakhand from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Paper: Lake Evolution, Hydrodynamic Outburst Flood Modeling and Sensitivity Analysis in the Central Himalaya: A Case Study

Authors: Ashim Sattar, Ajanta Goswami, Anil. V. Kulkarni and Adam Emmer

What could be worse than waking up one morning to find yourself drowning in water? People living in the Himalayan terrain experience this fear every time flash floods occur in the valleys. Glacial retreat induced by climate change led to the formation and evolution of glacial lakes in the Himalayan region. The emerging threats possessed by these lakes result in the incidence of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF) which wash away villages along its path. One such incident took place in June 2013 in Kedarnath Valley in Uttarakhand, India with a death toll of as many as five to six thousand people. This eventually led to the strong need for risk assessment and management related to the occurrences of such GLOF events.

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