KATHMANDU — Himalayan glaciers are losing mass at a rate 65 percent faster than a decade ago, according to new research, with glacial lakes growing more unstable and most of the vast mountain range poorly monitored.
The findings, detailed in a report by Systemiq with the Integrated Mountain Initiative and contributions from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the GB Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment, highlight increasing risks from accelerated melting.
Only about 21 of the estimated 40,000 glaciers across the Himalaya-Karakoram region are monitored in detail on a sustained basis, creating critical blind spots as the physical landscape transforms.
The accelerated melting follows recent devastating floods. In 2023, a flood in Sikkim killed at least 70 people and extensively damaged roads, bridges, and hydropower projects. A similar disaster in Uttarakhand in 2021 killed more than 200 people after a massive flood swept through the Rishiganga and Dhauliganga valleys.
As glaciers retreat, they form expanding lakes held back by unstable deposits of rock and ice. Warming also destabilizes permafrost—permanently frozen ground that thaws as temperatures rise—and high mountain slopes, increasing the potential for cascading hazards.
India faces a disproportionate risk. The report states that 18 percent of Indian land is Himalayan, yet this region accounts for approximately 35 percent of the nation's disasters. In July, the Indian government informed parliament that 56 glacial lakes had been classified as very high risk, following a 2025 scientific assessment of 189 high-risk lakes within the Indian Himalayan region. The Central Water Commission monitors 2,485 glacial lakes larger than 10 hectares across India's Himalayan river basins.
The Himalayas serve as a critical natural water system, feeding rivers that sustain hundreds of millions of people across South Asia. ICIMOD projects that "peak water" is expected around mid-century in most Hindu Kush Himalayan river basins—the point when glacier runoff reaches its maximum before declining as ice mass diminishes.
Himalayan water underpins roughly 20 percent of India's Gross Domestic Product, supporting vital sectors like wheat, rice, tea, hydropower, and pilgrimage economies. Despite this scale, the mountain states themselves capture only about 5 percent of that economic output.
