THE great rivers of northern India and Pakistan will run strongly for the next 40 years and then die away, bringing flood followed by famine. That was the grim message last week from the first decade-by-decade forecast for the rivers that drain the huge glaciers of the Himalayas.
The problem is global warming, which has already increased glacier melting by up to 30 per cent. 鈥淏ut after 40 years, most of the glaciers will be wiped out and then we will have severe water problems,鈥� says Syed Iqbal Hasnain of Calicut University, Kerala, reporting the results of a three-year study by British, Indian and Nepalese researchers.
The study finds the biggest impact in Pakistan, where the Indus irrigates half the country鈥檚 crops. Flows here could double before crashing to less than half current levels by the end of the century. But the declining flows predicted for the Ganges will also throw into disarray a vast Indian government scheme to avoid drought by diverting water from the country鈥檚 glacier-fed northern rivers to the arid south.
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Studies have also forecast drinking water shortages in the Americas as glaciers melt in the Andes and Rocky Mountains.