DEHRADUN: The Social Development for Communities (SDC) Foundation on Saturday released a report warning that Uttarakhand faces mounting threats from retreating glaciers, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), avalanches and increasingly erratic extreme weather.
Titled “Uttarakhand at a Climate Crossroads — What Four Years of Disaster Reporting Tell Us About Glaciers, GLOFs and Avalanches,” the report was unveiled at the Press Club by SDC founder Anoop Nautiyal and Praveen Upreti.
Nautiyal expressed solidarity with Nepal and offered condolences to those affected by the recent disaster. He said Uttarakhand, another Himalayan state, shared Nepal’s fragile ecology and faced many of the same risks.
Prepared under the foundation’s Uttarakhand Disaster and Accident Analysis Initiative (UDAAI), the document draws on monthly media tracking since October 2022 and covers developments through June 2026. It analyses 28 media updates to identify five recurring patterns and offer five recommendations.
The foundation stressed that the document was not a scientific study. It collates credible news reports and cross-references them with research and findings from ISRO, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, ICIMOD, IITs and universities.
Its central finding is a persistent gap between identifying danger and taking timely action. The NDMA listed 13 potentially dangerous glacial lakes in Uttarakhand in 2024, five of them in the highest-risk category, but monitoring and early-warning systems remain incomplete.
The report cites Vasudhara Lake, where a risk assessment was completed but an early-warning system had reportedly not been installed even months later.
“A second emerging concern is the identification of 219 hanging glaciers in the Alaknanda basin in a 2026 study, with around 30 per cent located in the upper Alaknanda region near Badrinath and Mana,” Nautiyal told TNIE.
Glaciers around the four Char Dham shrines are also receding. Annual retreat was reported at about 22.3 metres at Gangotri, 20 metres at Yamunotri, 17.3 metres at Badrinath and 14.1 metres at Kedarnath.
Across the Hindu Kush Himalaya, glacier area and ice reserves have declined sharply. More than 1,000 glacial lakes have appeared since 1990, while existing lakes have expanded, raising the likelihood and possible impact of GLOFs, the report said.
It said prolonged dry spells were increasingly being followed by sudden, intense rain or snowfall. Meanwhile, roads, hydropower projects, tourism facilities, pilgrimage routes and settlements continue to spread into vulnerable terrain.
The report urged the state to move decisively from risk mapping to prevention. Every high-risk glacial lake should have a deadline-bound action plan, a designated nodal agency and assured funding for surveillance, early-warning systems and downstream preparedness, it said.
It also recommended tracking hanging glaciers, unstable slopes, expanding lakes and avalanche-prone zones by integrating satellite data and remote sensing with field surveys and community observations.
Climate risk and carrying capacity must guide Char Dham planning alongside traffic, water and waste management, given growing threats from landslides, avalanches and GLOFs.