Climate change is accelerating the melting of glaciers and shortening their period of formation in the Himalayas. Satellite photographs taken by the Indian Space Research Organization have been used to assess the situation: the Gangotri glacier that feeds the River Ganges is receding by 23 meters every year: for other glaciers the situation is even more serious.
This phenomenon is extremely alarming because the glaciers mainly feed the rivers. This is the case of the Indus, the Brahmaputre and the Ganges, whose role in this densely populated region is fundamental (drinking water, irrigation) particularly because agriculture is an essential economic and social activity.
Two major consequences of this abnormal acceleration of the melting glaciers are therefore feared:
> First, river flow will increase and reach a peak around 2050 – 2070, according to calculations made by an Indo-British team. Devastating rises in water levels will therefore damage harvests and dwellings near the river banks, and landslides will affect the low valleys of the Himalayas;
> Then, once the glaciers have melted, these rivers will hardly be fed at all. Therefore, as stated in a report published on April 6th this year by the International Expert Group on Climate Change, they could become “seasonal rivers”: dry in the winter and filled by monsoon water in summer.
A drop in water levels such as this could be disastrous for the population of this region of Asia. The following two examples demonstrate the gravity of the situation:
> The Ganges flows into the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh and provides a living for 400 million people, mostly from agriculture;
> The Indus, which is the main source of drinking water in Pakistan, also irrigates the agricultural plains of the Punjab and the Uttar Pradesh in Northern India. These two States are among the largest producers of food products such as wheat and rice, which are staple components of the Indian population’s diet.
The problem of the Himalayan glaciers shows that the effects of climate change on world agricultural production could be humanly and economically disastrous. However, none of the agricultural economic models currently used by the major international institutions take into consideration environmental variables and therefore cannot seemingly evaluate the effects.
WOAgri, anxious to find a solution to this problem, which could put the food security of millions of people in jeopardy, has initiated the creation of new tools:
> The NAR model, in which the incorporation of environmental and climate indicators is one of its priorities;
> The NAR rating agency, which will inform public decision-makers on the risks incurred by agricultural markets.
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