Three researchers from Utrecht University used a combination of hydrological models, climate forecasts, satellite images of snow and ice cover, and rainfall data to forecast future discharge of the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Yangtze and Yellow rivers, and to make predictions about food security in the rivers’ basins. 

The Indus and Brahmaputra basins were shown to be likely to the most adversely affected, with flows dropping by as much as 20 per cent by 2050, while in the Yellow River basin, the availability of water for irrigation will probably rise due to an increase in winter rains.

‘The role of melt water in the Indus basin is much more significant than that in other river basins in Asia,’ said the study’s lead author, Walter Immerzeel. ‘The downstream sections of the Indus are dry, are home to one of the largest irrigation networks in the world and are completely dependant on melt water.’

The predictions, while alarming, are an improvement on those made in the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which suggested that the melting of Himalayan glaciers could affect hundreds of millions of people.

August 2010