Anthropocene Bearing on Snow-Avalanche Disasters over the West Indian Himalayas: An Appraisal

Abstract

The Himalayas is massive mountainous hills of altitude about 2000m to 6500m garlanding India in the north extending about 2500km arc-shaped snowy glaciers covering parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, China, and Bhutan at various heights in sub-tropics. Snow avalanches in winter with floods and landslides cause maximum fatalities with increasing vulnerability in West Indian Himalayas (WIH) dropping temperature to ≈ -60°C. The ignored calamity has encountered unplanned relief to inaccessible areas that warrant a disaster risk reduction (DRR) approach with modern structural interventions under downsizing glacier due to Anthropocene stresses.  The present study envisions the various avalanche occurrences in the three most pretentious states Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, in WIH. Correlation between geological vs meteorological responsibilities such as temperature, earthquake, snowfalls, and Indian summer monsoon with avalanche sorted out and causes depicted. Present investigation is about vulnerability, risk, track, impact, forecasting procedures, early warning system (EWS), disaster risk reduction processes, moderating strategies and other factors.  The inferred results are the cause of avalanche formation, the decline in the glacier area, the increase in frequency, and intensity, and the disaster risk reduction processes including the disaster management action plan (DMAP).  The vulnerability area designation, awareness among people, disaster mitigation by public private partnership (PPP) mode, as combined effort on war footing basis by the line departments.