Permafrost melting is rising as a novel environmental menace within the Kashmir Himalaya. A new examine has discovered that thawing permafrost may have an effect on 193 km of roads, 2,415 households, 903 alpine lakes, and eight hydropower tasks within the mountainous area.
Permafrost is any sort of floor — soil, sediment, rock, and so on. — that has been repeatedly frozen for at the least two years. Most of the permafrost on the earth has been that manner for a number of millennia.
But with international warming, the permafrost is slowly starting to thaw, with dramatic penalties. Permafrost shops a number of tonnes of natural carbon. As it melts, the carbon is launched into the setting, together with within the type of methane, a really potent greenhouse fuel and local weather pollutant.
The stability of permafrost within the Indian Himalaya is thus of nice concern.
The new examine, revealed in Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, was coauthored by researchers from the University of Kashmir and IIT-Bombay.
According to the examine, permafrost covers 64.8% of the overall geographic space of Jammu & Kashmir (J&Okay) and Ladakh. Of this 26.7% is steady permafrost (many of the soil is frozen), 23.8% is discontinuous (greater than half of the soil is frozen), and 14.3% is sporadic (intermittent patches of frozen soil).
A ‘crucial’ examine
“Region-wise, the Ladakh plateau contains the highest extent (87%) of permafrost, while the foothill plains of Jammu, Shigar Valley, and Siwaliks do not host any permafrost,” the authors wrote of their paper.
The examine’s corresponding writer Irfan Rashid, assistant professor within the Department of Geoinformatics on the University of Kashmir, Srinagar, stated the workforce analysed weekly satellite tv for pc information for floor temperatures from 2002 to 2023.
“Over 21 years, we examined over 56 images each year, amounting to a total dataset of 1,176 land surface temperature images,” he stated. The information got here from a NASA sensor onboard its Terra and Aqua satellites known as MODIS. Rashid stated “each pixel in [its images] represents an area of 1 sq. km.” He continued: “We analysed approximately 222,236 pixels across J&K and Ladakh. This extensive dataset allowed us to identify areas with consistently frozen temperatures and those where freezing conditions are absent or intermittent.”
Reet Kamal, affiliate professor within the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT-Ropar, stated the examine (during which he wasn’t concerned) could possibly be a preliminary step in assessing the influence of permafrost degradation.
“It is a crucial study, as permafrost has been largely overlooked, and no similar research has been conducted in this region,” Kamal stated. “While some studies exist in Uttarakhand, there is a pressing need for more research to better understand the risks associated with permafrost degradation.”
According to the specialists, the first issue driving permafrost degradation is the rise in floor temperature.
Farooq Ahmad Dar, assistant professor within the Department of Geography and Disaster Management on the University of Kashmir, stated that as well as to pure causes, human elements may have an effect on permafrost. “Activities such as deforestation, land-use change, and wildfires have severe impacts on the permafrost cover and its stability. Vegetation insulates and protects the permafrost from direct solar radiation. Natural processes such as [earthquakes] frequently shake the ground, including permafrost, and cause it to break apart,” he stated.
Likewise, he added, actions associated to infrastructure growth, equivalent to the development of dams, road-laying, and real-estate growth additionally affected permafrost within the western Himalaya. “It has also been observed that the tourism and associated activities in the region often lead to increased pressure and impact the stability of the permafrost regions,” Dar stated.
Uncertainties abound
The examine stated the risks related to permafrost thawing might be felt considerably throughout hundreds of glacial lakes within the Indian Himalayan arc.
In J&Okay itself, the authors recognized 332 proglacial lakes, of which 65 have differing (nontrivial) glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) risks. A proglacial lake is fashioned when water from a melting glacier collects in a melancholy within the panorama or when its stream is dammed. The Central Water Commission reported final 12 months that between 2011 and 2024, the protection of “glacial lakes and other water bodies” within the Himalaya had elevated by 33%.
In locations with steep glacial landscapes, quickly shifting ice typically scours the underlying bedrock, additional degrading permafrost. The rock-ice avalanche in Chamoli, Uttarakhand, in February 2021 is an instance: the avalanche was triggered by a glacier on a sheer slope the place the adjoining rock materials was frozen.
The South Lhonak Lake in Sikkim suffered a big GLOF in October 2023 in related circumstances. The lake is surrounded by moraines composed primarily of permafrost-laden materials. Over time, Rashid stated, temperature fluctuations induced slope failure triggered by degraded permafrost.
According to Kamal of IIT-Ropar, permafrost degradation can also be possible to adversely have an effect on groundwater and the provision of river water. “Permafrost, in the form of rock glaciers, contributes to river flow, and in some areas, its degradation could affect the base flow of rivers. However, no comprehensive studies have been conducted to accurately identify or quantify these impacts in the Indian context. Therefore making definitive statements on this matter would be premature,” he stated.
He added that permafrost “may also pose risks to infrastructure, but without in-depth studies, the extent of potential damage remains uncertain.”
Planning for permafrost
The specialists prompt that whereas present roads can’t be closed, the development of future ones needs to be knowledgeable by the presence or absence of permafrost. This could possibly be a long-term technique to guarantee sustainable development in ecologically fragile areas.
According to Rashid, whereas environmental influence assessments are performed for tasks like hydroelectric energy tasks, whether or not they adequately account for GLOFs and different cryospheric hazards is unclear. “Increased awareness of permafrost-related risks has only emerged following major disasters. Previously, GLOFs were primarily associated with Nepal, but events such as the Kedarnath disaster, the South Lhonak Lake outburst, and incidents in Ladakh have highlighted their broader relevance,” Rashid stated.
Dar agreed: to mitigate potential threat, he stated it’s essential to deliver these findings to the implementation stage, notably in locations with permafrost.
“Households in permafrost-rich regions face varying degrees of risk,” he added. “In Ladakh, steep slopes containing permafrost are home to residential settlements. Military infrastructure in Ladakh is at risk, posing concerns for national security. Many strategic roads pass through permafrost zones, and their degradation due to permafrost thaw or mass wasting could have severe implications for connectivity.”
“We mostly rely on satellite remote-sensing to monitor land surface temperatures,” Kamal added. “However, there is currently no in-situ monitoring in these regions. Deploying data loggers in the same catchment areas would allow us to track temperature fluctuations more accurately. These data loggers could also help calibrate satellite data and identify any biases, making permafrost monitoring more precise and reliable.”
Hirra Azmat is a Kashmir-based journalist who writes extensively on science, well being, and setting. Her tales have appeared in varied native and nationwide publications.
Published – March 25, 2025 05:30 am IST
