Glaciers, Glacier Lakes and Outburst Floods
In the Himalayas, glaciers are melting and retreating, which produces lakes insecurely dammed by ice or moraines. These dams are at risk of breaking, causing a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) with flows as great as 10,000 cubic metres a second.
In the past two decades GLOF has become a topic of intense discussion within the development community in Nepal. The Dig Tsho GLOF on 4 August 1985, completely destroyed the nearly completed Namche hydropower plant and all bridges, trails, cultivation fields, houses and livestock along its path to the confluence of the Dudh-Koshi and the Sun-Koshi rivers over 90 km (56 mi). The Dig Tsho glacier is on the terminus of the Langmoche Glacier. This event brought into focus the seriousness of such events and the studies to assess the glaciers, glacier lakes and GLOF followed.
Studies of the glaciers and glacier lakes were carried out in 1988 by a joint Sino-Nepalese team. The Arun-Koshi river basin hosts 737 glaciers and 229 glacier lakes, out of which 24 lakes are potentially dangerous. The Sun-Koshi basin is home to 45 glacier lakes, of which 10 are potentially dangerous. According to a Sino-Nepalese study, since the 1940s on at least 10 occasions, glacier lakes burst their dams. Among them were five bursts in three glacier lakes in the Arun River Basin and four in three glacier lakes of the Sun Koshi River Basin.
Read more about this topic: Saptakoshi River
Famous quotes containing the words glacier, lakes, outburst and/or floods:
““The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“The Indian navigator naturally distinguishes by a name those parts of a stream where he has encountered quick water and forks, and again, the lakes and smooth water where he can rest his weary arms, since those are the most interesting and more arable parts to him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“War was then no longer this noble and unified outburst of souls in love with glory that he had imagined from Napoleon’s proclamations.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills be joyful together.
Before the Lord; for he cometh to judge the earth; with
righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalm XCVIII (l. XCVIII, 8–9)