Back to news
12 May 2015 | News

The International Glacier symposium in Kathmandu

1 min Read

70% Complete

 

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) through its Cryosphere Initiative hosted the first International Glacier Symposium (IGS) in Kathmandu. The week-long event took place from 1 to 6 March, 2015. The IGS brought together scientists from around the world and provided a forum to discuss measurements, modeling and interpretation of glaciological and cryospheric changes in high mountain Asia.

Poster presentation highlighting glaciers of the past, present, future and their melt processes, hazards and impacts on people were showcased during the symposium to facilitate regional and local knowledge sharing on glacier.

“Identification of critical glaciers in the Nepal Himalayas inferred from Landsat data” was one of the posters presented and highlighted study findings conducted by ICMOD to identify critical glaciers which indicated prominent effect on the glacier environment of Nepal Himalaya. The images acquired via Landsat generated four decades of glacier data ranging from 1980s to 2010 identified 27 glaciers as critical. The findings were based on three criteria: physical aspects such as area change, terminus retreat, elevation shift, glacier fragmentation; risk and hazards to livelihood, settlements, infrastructures, etc.; and climatic aspects (temperature, precipitation).

The posters showed the classifications of critical glaciers — clean-ice, debris-covered and lake associated glaciers — to estimate recession loss and its dynamics in each decades. These classification result shows that in clean-ice glaciers, the area change and shift in terminus was noticeable in all decades; however, a prominent loss and thinning in glacier area has more influence in small sized clean-ice glaciers. Variability in retreat rate independent of glacier size was noticed in debris-covered glaciers. Similarly, lake associated glaciers showed a substantial retreat at their snout in all decades, suggesting the influence of lakes on glacier retreat. Shrinking and fragmentation of ice bodies over the past three decades were also visible in the results. The study concluded that glacier area loss is likely to accelerate in coming decades with the enlargement of glacial lakes and points out the need for continuous study of critical glaciers to understand the changes over time to predict water availability in terms of long-term glacial loss and the reduction of glacial hazards.

Stay current

Stay up to date on what’s happening around the HKH with our most recent publications and find out how you can help by subscribing to our mailing list.

Sign Up

related contents

Continue exploring this topic

27 Mar 2017 Himalica
Bhutan’s Minister of Agriculture and Forests visits Himalica Pilot Sites in Barshong, Tsirang

The Bhutanese Minister of Agriculture and Forests, Lyonpo Yeshey Dorji, visited Himalica pilot project sites in ...

3 Jul 2015 News
Two senior ICIMOD staff in Silk Road think tank

ICIMOD’s Director Programme Operations Dr Eklabya Sharma and Livelihoods Theme Leader Dr Golam Rasul have been named members of the Silk Road ...

16 Apr 2015 News
Kiwi orchard established in Bhutan

Bhutan’s Agriculture and Forests Minister Lyonpo Yeshey Dorji inaugurated a kiwi fruit orchard (demonstration farm) in Wangkha on 15 March ...

13 Dec 2016 News
Mountain Festival Held in Pokhara to Mark International Mountain Day

ICIMOD and others marked International Mountain Day 2016 in Pokhara at the third annual Mountain Festival. The Nepal Mountaineering Association ...

10 Sep 2018 HI-RISK
Trails of Disaster: Experiences from a Trip to Barhabise

At the end of June 2018, I participated in a field visit 40–70 km east of Kathmandu, to the tributaries ...

29 Jun 2015 News
ICIMOD research stations damaged by Nepal Earthquake 2015

  Langtang Valley has been the focus of intense glaciological, meteorological, and hydrological fieldwork over the past four years as part ...

27 Jun 2016 News
Pilot Projects Achieve Targets in Upper Indus Basin

A review and planning meeting was held in Islamabad on 7 June, 2016 on two projects underway ...

12 May 2022 News
Request for proposals: Consultancy service to scope and provide recommendations to support the development of a Mountains of Opportunity Investment Framework (MOIF) for the Hindu Kush Himalaya

About ICIMOD The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) seeks to enable sustainable and resilient mountain development for improved ...