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Picture Courtesy: THE HINDU
In August 2025, northern India experienced flooding and landslides, with Punjab experiencing its worst floods since 1988, Kashmir reporting 34 deaths, and Dharali village destroyed in Uttarkashi. These events highlight the combined role of climate change and unchecked development in the Himalayan region.
Natural fragility
Geologically young: Himalayas are a new mountain range still tectonically active and rising, making them unstable and prone to frequent earthquakes and seismic events.
Steep terrain: High-gradient slopes and loose soil increase the risk of landslides, mass movements, and erosion.
Melting glaciers: Ice reserves are shrinking fast due to accelerated warming. This increases glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) risk and affects downstream water security.
Climate change
Accelerated warming: The region is warming much faster than the global average, intensifying glacial melt and permafrost thaw. This weakens slope stability and impacts water cycles.
Extreme weather: Climate change is driving more frequent and intense rainfall, cloudbursts, and flash floods. These weather extremes act as a multiplier, turning human-weakened areas into disaster zones.
Ecological and environmental impacts
Destabilized slopes: Heavy blasting and excavation for hydropower projects and highways weaken the fragile geological structure of the mountains, causing massive landslides.
Increased soil erosion: Deforestation for construction and tourism removes native vegetation, whose roots anchor the soil, leads to accelerated soil erosion.
Altered river ecosystems: Excessive damming and the dumping of construction waste into rivers disrupt natural water flows, raise riverbeds, and increase downstream flood risk.
Glacial acceleration: Pollution, including black carbon from vehicles and industry, accelerates glacial melting, increase the risk of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs).
Water scarcity and contamination: Construction and unregulated tourism deplete and contaminate local water sources, affecting both human health and ecosystems.
Social and economic impacts
Human loss and displacement: Unplanned development leads to loss of life and displacement when infrastructure collapses during disasters, as seen in the Joshimath land subsidence crisis and the 2021 Chamoli disaster.
Economic setbacks: Destruction of infrastructure, agriculture, and property results in huge financial losses and disrupts the tourism-dependent economy.
Increased vulnerability: Projects built without adequate consultation displace local communities, increasing their vulnerability..
Policy failures
One-size-fits-all policies: National environmental laws ignore the Himalayas' unique fragility, applying standards meant for plains to sensitive mountain ecosystems, leads to inadequate Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for projects.
Ignoring carrying capacity: Warnings from scientists and experts about the ecological limits are overlooked in favor of economic development and tourism.
Reactive approach: Relief and post-disaster response are prioritized over proactive prevention and risk-reduction strategies. Learnings from past catastrophes are ignored.
Governance Gaps
Poor coordination: Central, state, and local governments fail to coordinate effectively on land use, disaster management, and planning, creating fragmented and ineffective responses.
Weak enforcement: Building codes and environmental rules are poorly enforced, allowing construction on unstable slopes and riverbeds.
Ignoring local knowledge: Top-down development planning disregards the traditional wisdom and sustainable practices of local mountain communities, eroding their natural resilience.
Insufficient disaster management: State disaster management authorities lack staff, resources, and clear plans. Early warning systems for events like cloudbursts remain underdeveloped or non-functional in many areas.
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Critical Questions Infrastructure needs vs ecological preservation: Building roads, dams, and other infrastructure is necessary for economic development, but these projects have environmental impacts on fragile ecosystems. Economic benefits vs environmental costs: Development projects bring economic benefits but also incur environmental and social costs that may not be fully accounted for in traditional economic analyses. Short-term gains vs long-term sustainability: Prioritizing immediate economic growth sometimes conflict with the need to ensure the long-term ecological health and sustainability of the region. |
Strengthen environmental legislation and norms
Cumulative Impact Assessments (CIA): Implement mandatory and comprehensive CIAs for all major infrastructure projects to evaluate their collective, long-term impact on a river basin or ecosystem.
Land-Use Zoning and Eco-Sensitive Zones (ESZs): Formulate strict land-use plans that prohibit construction in geologically unstable areas.
Implement sustainable development models
Micro-Hydel Projects: Prioritize small, run-of-the-river micro-hydel projects that provide decentralized power with minimal environmental disruption.
Eco-Tourism: Shift from mass tourism to regulated, low-impact eco-tourism. This involves capping visitor numbers, restricting activities in sensitive zones, and ensuring tourism revenue benefits local communities.
Green Infrastructure: Invest in bio-engineering solutions, slope stabilization techniques, and the promotion of native plant species to mitigate erosion and landslides.
Community Participation: Institutionalize meaningful participation of local communities in project planning, monitoring, and disaster management. Local residents are the first responders and possess deep knowledge of the local ecosystem.
Encourage inter-state and international collaboration
Transboundary Agreements: Establish binding agreements for data sharing on glaciers, river flows, and seismic activity among Himalayan states.
Joint Watershed Management: Promote joint initiatives for managing transboundary watersheds and addressing shared challenges like water resource management and pollution.
Regional Cooperation: Cooperate with regional bodies like the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) to facilitate research, knowledge exchange, and coordinated action across the Himalayan region.
The August 2025 floods in northern India highlight the link between climate change and development in the Himalayas, with rising temperatures, GLOFs, unregulated hydropower, infrastructure, and deforestation exacerbating disasters. Expert recommendations emphasize the need for sustainable development, EIAs, and community involvement.
Source: THE HINDU
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PRACTICE QUESTION Q. Development and disaster are two sides of the same coin in the Himalayan region. Critically analyze. 250 words |
Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures, weather patterns, and precipitation due to natural factors (like volcanic eruptions, solar cycles) and more significantly, human activities (burning fossil fuels, deforestation, industrial emissions).
A 2015 global treaty under UNFCCC where nations pledged to limit global warming to below 2°C (preferably 1.5°C) compared to pre-industrial levels.
A state where a country/company removes as much COâ‚‚ from the atmosphere as it emits, through carbon sinks (forests, technology like carbon capture).
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