It’s a scary thought, but scientists say the 40 percent of humanity living in South Asia and China could well be living with little drinking water within 50 years as global warming melts Himalayan glaciers, the region’s main water source, according to Antonio M. Claparols, president of the Ecological Society of the Phils.
Claparols noted that the glaciers supply 303.6 million cubic feet every year to Asian rivers, including the Yangtze and Yellow rivers in China, the Ganga in India, the Indus in Pakistan, the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh and Burma’s Irrawaddy.
But as global warming increases, the glaciers have been rapidly retreating, with average temperatures in the Himalayas up one degree Celsius since the 1970’s, he added. Citing a World Wide Fund report published recently, Claparols said a quarter of the world’s glaciers could disappear by 2050 and half by 2100.
"If the current scenario continues, there will be very little water left in the Ganga and its tributaries, "Claparols noted.
"The situation here is more critical because here they depend on glaciers for drinking water while in other areas there are other sources of drinking water, not just glacial."
Experts are alarmed. About 67 percent of the nearly 12,124 square miles of Himalayan glaciers are receding and in the long run as the ice diminishes, glacial runoffs in summer and river flows will also go down, leading to severe water shortages in the region.
"Global climate change has had an effect, but water has also dried up because agriculture in the mountains has increased, "he said.