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Impact of Climate Change on the Glaciers of Spiti River Basin, Himachal Pradesh, India

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Abstract

People living in Spiti river basin, located in the north-eastern part of Himachal Pradesh, depend heavily on seasonal snow and glacier melt for their water requirements. The basin is more susceptible to climate change, as it indicates a higher rise in temperature than other parts of Himachal Pradesh. This work assesses glaciers' current health and projects future changes under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 (Representative Concentration Pathway) climate change scenarios. The total glaciated area in Spiti basin is 550.5 sq. km containing 21.42 ± 3.86 Giga-tonnes (Gt) of stored water. The basin has observed a mass loss of 8.89 Gt from 1985 to 2013. The future projection for the worst-case scenario (RCP8.5) suggests, 4.1 °C rise in temperature and 3.4% increase in winter precipitation by 2070 (average, 2065–2075), from 1985 to 2005 baseline period. Under this climate change scenario, the Spiti basin is likely to experience 84.8% loss in glacier stored water, 71.8% reduction in glaciated area from observed values of 2014. Besides, 76% of total glaciers may disappear by 2070 under RCP 8.5 scenario, which will alter the village communities' water security status, thereby highlighting the urgency to develop an adaptation strategy for the region.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Space Applications Centre (ISRO) and Divecha Centre for Climate Change (IISc) for providing necessary funds and support to carry out this research. Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) provided daily temperature and precipitation data of Kaza meteorological station and Climate Change Research Centre, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology provided us the climate model data.

Funding

We thank Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) – Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad for providing necessary funds to carry out this research work under “Cryosphere Science and Applications” programme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Birla Institute of Technology and Science-Goa Campus, Zuarinagar, India

    Ashutosh Kulkarni & Rajiv K. Chaturvedi

  2. DST-Centre for Excellence in Climate Change, Divecha Centre for Climate Change, IISc, Bengaluru, India

    Veena Prasad & Tejal Shirsat

  3. Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad, India

    I. M. Bahuguna

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  1. Ashutosh Kulkarni
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  2. Veena Prasad
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  3. Tejal Shirsat
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  4. Rajiv K. Chaturvedi
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  5. I. M. Bahuguna
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Contributions

AK was involved in conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing- original Draft, writing- review & editing, VP contributed to methodology, formal analysis, visualization, TS was involved in data curation, RC contributed to conceptualization, I.M B was involved in supervision.

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Correspondence to Ashutosh Kulkarni.

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Kulkarni, A., Prasad, V., Shirsat, T. et al. Impact of Climate Change on the Glaciers of Spiti River Basin, Himachal Pradesh, India. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 49, 1951–1963 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-021-01368-9

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