GANGTOK,: The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has identified 189 high-risk glacial lakes across the country, with 40 of them located in Sikkim. This means that nearly one in four of India’s highly vulnerable glacial lakes is situated in Sikkim.
These glaciers, due to climate change and global warming, pose grave risks to downstream settlements as witnessed in the devastating Glacial Lake Flood Outburst (GLOF) of October 2023 in Sikkim.
To prevent further such calamitous GLOFs, the Sikkim government has constituted a Sikkim Commission on Glacial Hazards consisting of leading glaciologists, hydrologists, DRR experts, Disaster Managers and officials from Government of Sikkim as members. Former DST senior advisor Dr. Akhilesh Gupta heads the commission.
Officials here share that sufficient scientific data and field study materials – meticulously collected for over the past decade - are available for the Sikkim Commission on Glacial Hazards to utilize.
The State department of Science & Technology along with national institutes, agencies and universities have been studying the glacial lakes of Sikkim for the past one decade. Now the accumulated data and knowledge can be effectively leveraged by the newly-formed commission for develop mitigation measures for the Sikkim government.
“We have done a lot of field investigations in the last decade and scientific studies have been carried out on the glacial lakes. This commission has to now synthesize all the knowledge and data collected by the State government, universities, agencies and institutions. The commission would be studying and reviewing these studies and suggest the government the way forward on how to reduce the GLOF threat and the steps to be taken,” said a senior official.
A decade ago, the Sikkim government had constituted a committee to study climate change and glacial lakes in the State.
In contrast, this new commission is specifically mandated to address and mitigate future glacial threats like GLOF to Sikkim. The commission would not just be studying glaciers but work more on how we can reduce the GLOF risks that Sikkim is facing, it was informed.
Recently in September, the Sikkim government initiated a multi-disciplinary expedition to visit and study the status of glacial lakes in North Sikkim. During the two-week long expedition, the team conducted a detailed susceptibility assessment of six high-risk glacial lakes.
Officials add that this expedition’s findings would also serve as a founding template for the new commission to start its work.
On what measures can be adopted to prevent GLOFs, it was suggested to first start by further categorizing the 16 high-risk glacial lakes and identify those lakes that have a greater threat potential.
Once the listing is done based on the degree of vulnerability, the authorities and stakeholders can discuss watershed-level intervention on the glacial lakes. If there are some lakes draining into a single watershed, measures like check dams and deflection structures can be considered at the watershed-level.
For stand-alone lakes, single-lake intervention can be considered for reducing the water level so that the GLOF threat is minimized. These measures would be discussed with the commission, it was informed.