Snowless in the Himalaya
Photo: Karan Madhok
The menace of vanishing snows now haunts the Himalayan region, taking away the very essence of the mountains for Indians and people from around the world.
Snowfall arrived much later than usual this year to popular Indian Himalaya tourist destinations in the mountainous states like Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, and Himachal Pradesh. The delay caused some consternation, not only amongst stakeholders in the local tourism industry, but by environmentalists and the farming communities living in the region. While ski resort destinations like Gulmarg (J&K) and Auli (Uttarakhand) came to a complete halt for most part of the peak season, other major winter hotspots (pun intended) like Manali, Shimla, and Mussoorie also experienced a significant reduction in tourist footfall.
The snowscapes of the Indian Himalayan region are forever etched in the collective consciousness of the Indian masses who have made pilgrimages to remote temples, monasteries, and sacred hills since ancient times. Pilgrims from as far as peninsular India routinely head for arduous destinations, some of which are higher than 10,000 feet above sea level. Beyond those searching for spiritual awakenings, hordes of Indian tourists from the scorching plains also head to Shimla, Nainital, Mussoorie and Kashmir to witness the magic of a snow-covered landscapes every winter, braving traffic jams, mud slides and other inconveniences. Of late, many Indians have even begun to visit the popular ski destinations too, much like their counterparts in the West.
From the Amarnath cave high in the Kashmir Himalayas, Mount Kailash in Tibet, to Kedarnath and Badrinath, the fascination for the land of the snows has long been an integral part of the Indian consciousness.
Substituting the natural ecosystem with concrete structures, roads, and construction projects has directly led to rising temperatures in the mountains. What is the point of this kind of development? There is much more at stake here: water and food security for a nation of a billion-and-a-half.
This year, however, Gulmarg—whose snow draped landscape is the very epitome of winter magic in India—presented a dystopian picture of brown hills with only a few patches of snow for most of this winter season. Srinagar—the picturesque capital of Kashmir which receives heavy snowfall every year—was left mostly dry, too.
The menace of vanishing snows in the Himalayan region is a haunting one, taking away the very essence of the mountains not just for the Indian people, but the whole world.
This literal melting away of the land of eternal snows has far more serious consequences for the economic well-being of the people living in these regions, and the water security of the whole sub-continent. Lack of snow this year has had a direct bearing on the earnings of hotel owners, pony owners, taxi operators, ski resorts, homestay owners and retailers selling souviners and handicraft items to tourists. It has cast a pall of gloom on the apple growers of Kashmir, whose crops needs a snow cover for an extended period of time during peak winter to obtain optimal yields.
Environmentalists have seen a probable connection between global warming and changing weather patterns having a very deleterious impact on the ecology of the region—particularly regarding its hydrology—leading to the delay and drop in the season’s expected snows.
The impact of snowless hilly regions will not be limited to those regions alone, but is likely to extend to the plains as well, by way of reduced water levels in the major snow fed rivers of the land that include the Ganga, Yamuna, Sutlej, Ravi, Beas, Chenab, and Jhelum. Snowmelt plays a crucial role in aiding plant growth, and any reduction can have long ranging consequences in the shape of paucity of water both for the soil and irrigation purposes, leading to a fall in crop yield. Additionally, frequent warmer winters will eventually force farmers to alter their planting schedules and switching from water intensive crops to hardier crops, like beans and maize. Lesser snow will also have an impact on drinking water availability from the hills to the plains.
While this year’s winter might well be a seasonal aberration, owing in part to the ongoing El-Nino effect over the central and eastern Pacific region, one would be well advised to heed nature’s warning and not revert to business as usual. We must realize that what we witnessed over the Himalayan hills in North India is a snow drought, and it has become an increasingly common phenomenon worldwide. The snow drought of 2014-15 in Sierra Nevada had devastating consequences for the region with regard to water supply disruptions, and furthermore, caused a $2.7 billion hit to the agricultural sector. The Italian Alps were in the news for pretty much the same reason in recent years, exemplified by the March 2022 snow water equivalent (SWE) shortfall, which was the lowest in a century. This led to serious hydrological challenges to the Po and Adige rivers, leading to the worst-in-record hydrological drought that summer.
Closer home in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region—which boasts as many as 54,000 glaciers—warming has accelerated at the rate of 0.2 degrees per decade for the last half a century. On the Indian sub-continent too, the Ganga and Indus Rivers have seen a significant one to three per cent decrease in SWE over the last four decades. Owing to minimal snowfall in 2023 over the region, some experts have called this a “no snow year” as well.
The El Nino effect may be to blame for the paucity of snow this year, but what is truly worrying is that what is usually a natural phenomenon itself may now be a direct cause of climate change and global warning. There may be local factors behind the falling intensity of snowfall in the Indian Himalayan regions too. The phenomenal increase in tourism way beyond the carrying capacity of the hilly regions and the change in land use which has resulted in the loss of forest cover have wreaked havoc with the sensitive ecology of the region. Massive infrastructure developments in sensitive mountain regions, including road construction projects, have led to the destruction of wildlife habitats and the declining biodiversity of the region. The consequent rise of the number of tourist vehicles has further compounded matters.
Substituting the natural ecosystem with concrete structures, roads, and construction projects has directly led to rising temperatures in the mountains. What is the point of this kind of development? There is much more at stake here: water and food security for a nation of a billion-and-a-half.
The only alternative must be to obtain a thorough and all-encompassing understanding of the rising incidence of such events. This will enable one to come up with effective strategies that will enable one to deal with the increasingly dynamic snowfall patterns in the region. This can help the regions impacted by snow droughts face the future with confidence and hope.
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Vipin Labroo is a content creator, author and PR consultant. A member of the Nonfiction Authors Association, he has years of corporate experience working with an eclectic range of clients, writing press releases, articles, blogs, white papers, research reports, website content, eBooks and so on across segments like technology, business & marketing, internet marketing, healthcare, fashion, real estate, travel and so on. You can find him on Twitter: @labroovipin and Instagram: @vipin_labroo.
