Abstract
The climate variability and global climatic change has brought tremendous impact on the high mountainous glacial environment. About 6% of glacier area has been decreased in the Tamor and Dudh Koshi sub-basins of eastern Nepal from 1970's to 2000. The Himalayan glaciers are shrinking, retreating and lowering its surface. Consequently the lakes formed at the glacier snouts are expanding rapidly in most cases. The ICIMOD in 2001 mapped 2323 glacial lakes and out of it 20 lakes were identified as potentially dangerous glacial lakes in Nepal however, three lakes were removed from the list of dangerous glacial lakes. As an impact of global warming 50 lakes is growing and 22 new lakes have been formed after 2000. Almost all the glacial lakes are situated at high altitude of rugged terrain with harsh climatic condition. Hence to carry out the physical mitigation work on these lakes are impractical but the awareness and adaptation measures can be carried out to reduce the GLOF risk. As a pilot case study GLOF risk reduction activities were carried out in Everest region downstream of Imja Tsho, one of the fastest growing lakes in the Himalaya.
