NEWS: 40 Percent Of SE Asia and China Without Drinking Water In 50 Years

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“The cry in the mountains is that water has gone down and springs have dried up,” Jagdish Bahadur, an expert on Himalayan glaciers.

“Global climate change has had an effect, but water has also dried up because agriculture in the mountains has increased,” he said.

In Nepal, there are more than 3,000 glaciers that work as reservoirs for fresh water and another 2,000 glacial lakes.

“The glaciers are shrinking due to global warming posing a risk to water availability not only in Nepal but also in parts of South Asia,” said Arun Bhakta Shrestha, an expert on Himalayan glaciers at the government Hydrology and Meteorology Department.

“But how soon or to what extent this problem will arise is difficult to say now.”


In the Indian Himalayas, there are already signs of water shortages in the summer: tourists in the rugged mountains of Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh have to carry buckets of water while trekkers say temperatures are much warmer than a decade ago.

The effect can also be seen in the rest of the country.

During the summer, thousands of people in India’s villages trek for miles in search of water and even in cities water is a precious commodity, sometimes leading to street fights.

The per capita availability of water in India has fallen to 1,869 cubic metres (6,602 cubic feet) from 4,000 cubic metres two decades ago, as farmers increasingly tap into ground water. Millions of tube wells have been dug in India and in many areas ground water levels have plunged because of excessive pumping.




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