Looking at Ladakh - Part 2

Hi everyone - thank you for all the comments you have been giving me on my posts! I was planning to make this the final blog post on Ladakh, but the region is just so fascinating that I realised I had written a lot more than I had planned to. So this will be the penultimate post; the final will be on management techniques and looking at who will be most impacted by climate change in the region - with a particular focus on gender. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this post!

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In Ladakh, anthropogenic climate change is predicted by many scientists and organisations (e.g. WWF; IPCC, 2007) to make the region warmer. Precipitation, will additionally be effected - becoming more sporadic and intense, which would increase the likelihood of extreme weather events such as the cloudburst event in 2010 (featured in my last blog-post). In the last 35 years, temperatures in winter have risen by around a degree, and in summer by 0.5 degrees Celsius (Singh, 2014). Glacial ice sheets high in the Himalaya that store large volumes of freshwater have began to melt at an alarming rate due to this recent warming (UNEP, 2007). Some glaciers, such as the Imja, are declining by 200m every year (Somos-Valenzuela et al., 2012). What this has meant, is that the freshwater from glacial streams and lakes that many Himalayan towns rely on is becoming a rapidly scarce resource as the glacier shrinks in size. Ladakh’s two main industries - agriculture and tourism - are both very water intensive, particularly as tourism figures have began to reach thousands each year, and these tourists are demanding a higher and higher water usage per capita. 

The receding Imja Glacier and the growing Imja Lake. Source: The Guardian

For the time being, however, while some regions experience drought, other glacial lakes and streams have begun to increase in volume from the new influx of glacial meltwater. This has become a problem in itself, with lakes and streams overflowing in much of the Himalaya more broadly. The Imja glacial lake, for example, in Nepal is one of the most rapidly growing lakes in the Himalayan range. It has grown to nearly double the size in the last decade (Watanabe et al., 2009), reflecting the dangerous status bestowed upon it by the scientific community, such as Somos-Valenzuela et al. (2012) due to concerns that it may burst its banks. Similarly, in Ladakh, reports (e.g. Ahmad, 2015) show that glacial lakes have began to overflow, with flash flooding and mass movement impacting local communities. Precipitation in Ladakh is also becoming a large problem. While it may be intuitive to think that an increase in extreme weather events will decrease the chance of drought, it is not the case. Ladakh has an annual precipitation rate of 100mm per year, which falls mostly in the months of July and August, up to a rate of 25mm per month during this time (Worldweather.com, n/a). The low annual rainfall and seasonality of the rain is responsible for Ladakh’s dry, barren ground mostly lacking in vegetation. The cloudburst event of 2010 reached a peak precipitation rate of 75mm in 30 minutes; almost an entire year's worth of rain. If the scientists at the conference I attended are correct in estimating an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events and seasonality of rainfall, then the barren landscape of Ladakh will only exacerbate flooding and mass movement.

Children in St. Peter's School, Ladakh expressing

 their concern for the melting glaciers  

According to the Jammu and Kashmir State Action Plan on Climate Change (2013), maximum temperatures are expected to rise to between 0.5 - 2.5 degrees Celsius, while minimum temperatures are projected to rise by 1 - 4.5 degrees Celsius. Additionally, the report also estimates that the number of days with precipitation in the Himalayan region in 2030 may increase by 5 - 10 days on average, while the intensity of rainfall is likely to rise by 1 - 2 mm per day. It is no wonder, therefore, that the IPCC (2007) report state that every year, there will be at least one natural disaster in the Himalayan region. With population and tourist numbers soaring in Ladakh, it remains to be seen what a suitable plan of action will be. Not only will natural disasters such as flooding and drought become more prevalent, but secondary hazards that result from these (and earthquakes) in the area will increase in frequency - such as mass movement - due to unsuitable town planning. I will have to finish here - but in my final post I will comment on what direction I think the government should be pursuing! Any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated :)