Study maps future glacial lakes

Key Highlights

• These sudden floods occur when natural dams holding back glacial lakes collapse, releasing vast volumes of water, debris and sediment downstream.
• The findings of this research have been published in Nature Scientific Reports journal.
• The paper has been co-authored by Ajay Dashora of IIT-G’s Department of Civil Engineering, along with his research scholar Anushka Vashistha and Afroz Ahmad Shah of the Universiti of Brunei Darussalam.
• GLOFs have caused extensive loss of life and damage to infrastructure in the past, including roads, bridges, hydropower projects, and agricultural land.
• The last major disaster caused by a GLOF was in October 2023 in Sikkim, which killed 94 people, damaged 1,835 houses, displaced 2,563 people, and swept a 1,200-megawatt dam away.