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Meltwater Quality and Quantity Assessment in the Himalayan Glaciers

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Abstract

Glaciers are the largest reservoir of fresh water on the earth. They play a vital role in the hydrological cycle (Sangewar 2012). Snow field areas of the Himalayan glaciers store about 12,000 km3 of fresh water and are the main source of water for great Asian rivers: Ganga, Brahmaputra and Indus (Cruz et al. 2007). There are approximately 9600 glaciers found in the Indian Himalayan region, covering an area of about 40,000 km2 (Raina and Srivastava 2008). Himalayan glaciers control the global climate change and are considered as a sensitive indicator for climate change (Sharma et al. 2013a). Since last century, majority of the Himalayan glaciers have been retreating significantly due to climate change (Kulkarni and Bahuguna 2002; Kulkarni and Alex 2003; Kulkarni et al. 2005) and effecting the meltwater runoff from the glaciers of Himalaya (Kulkarni et al. 2002). Discharge from the Himalayan glaciers is important for the generation of hydroelectric power, irrigation and drinking water supply (Singh et al. 2006).

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India for funding the research project on the Chhota Shigri glacier. First author (Virendra Bahadur Singh) is also grateful to the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, UK for providing him Commonwealth Split-site Scholarship tenable at University of Bristol, UK.

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  1. School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 110067, India

    Virendra Bahadur Singh & A L. Ramanathan

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  1. Virendra Bahadur Singh
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  2. A L. Ramanathan
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Correspondence to A L. Ramanathan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center for Water Environment Technology, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Futoshi Kurisu

  2. School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

    AL. Ramanathan

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India

    Absar Ahmad Kazmi

  4. Department of Environmental Science, Tezpur Central University, Tezpur, Assam, India

    Manish Kumar

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Singh, V.B., Ramanathan, A.L. (2017). Meltwater Quality and Quantity Assessment in the Himalayan Glaciers. In: Kurisu, F., Ramanathan, A., Kazmi, A., Kumar, M. (eds) Trends in Asian Water Environmental Science and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39259-2_16

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