Melting glaciers threaten China and sub-continent

The shrinking of Himalayan glaciers could cause widespread flooding in China, India and Nepal, before creating water shortages for hundreds of millions of people across the region, a leading environmental group warned yesterday.

The Switzerland-based World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said that the rate of retreat of the Asian mountain range's glaciers is accelerating because of global warming, and has now reached 10m to 15m a year.

"The rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers will first increase the volume of water in rivers causing widespread flooding," said Jennifer Morgan, head of WWF's global climate change program.

"But in a few decades this situation will change and the water level in rivers will decline, meaning massive economic and environmental problems for people in Western China, Nepal and Northern India," he said.

Himalayan glaciers feed into seven of Asia's biggest rivers: the Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Thanlwin (formerly the Salween), Yangtze and Yellow.

WWF noted that this ensures a year-round water supply to hundreds of millions of people in the Indian subcontinent and China. As glacier water flows dwindle, the energy potential of hydroelectric power will decrease causing problems for industry, while reduced irrigation means lower crop production, it said.

In China, the report said, the Qinhai Plateau's wetlands have seen declining lake water levels, lake shrinkage, and the degradation of swampland. In India, the Gangotri glacier, which supports one of India's largest river basins, is receding at an average rate of 23m per year.