Union minister of state for Environment and Forests(Independent charge) Shri Jairam Ramesh will be in Ahmedabad today. He will deliver an address at city’s Space Application Centre(ISRO) on “National Wetland Inventory and Assessment Project” and will release Wetland Atlas and discussion paper on snow and glaciers of Himalayas.

It should be mentioned that the project “National Wetland Inventory and Assessment” was formulated by Space Application Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad, which was approved and funded by Ramesh’a ministry. All wetlands were classified into 19 types and mapped at 1:50,000 scale using latest IRS LISS III images. The database were organized at district level(612 maps), and state/UT level. In addition maps of selected important wetlands like Ramsar sites were prepared with a 5 km buffer area(150 sites).

Total wetland area estimated is 1,52,44,828 ha(15.245 Mha) that is around 4.64 per cent of the geographic area. Excluding the rivers, the total area estimate stands at 10 Mha.

High Altitude Himalayan wetlands nestled in the rugged terrain of Himalayas at different elevation ranges have been mapped for the first time. Total 4703 lakes with 126249 ha area are reported that iye above 3000 m elevation. Chholhamu Lake(102.5 ha) in Sikkim, at 5,486 m elevation is the highest lake mapped. It is the origin of the river Teesta. Pangong Tso in Jammu and Kashmir with 29345 ha area at 4350 m is the largest high altitude lake.

Total 19 state level atlases, one national atlas and one brochure is being release by the minister today during the function.

The report on the “Snow and Glaciers of the Himalayas” is the culmination of work carried out jointly by SAC and 14 other agencies/institutes of the country during the period 2005-2010.

This study has been conducted under the joint programme of the central ministry and department of space. The studies carried out comprise the detailed inventory of the Himalayan glaciers(covering Indus, Ganga and Brahmputra basins) on 1:50,000 scale, monitor the retreat/advance of glaciers over a period of time and the mass balance study of glaciers well distributed throughout the Himalaya. Snow cover monitoring(every ten days) of the entire Himalaya was another important component of this study. The findings of the study on the Himalaya are presented in this volume. IRS data has been primarily used in this study.

The inventory reveals that these are 32392 glaciers having a total glaciated area of 71182 sq km. About 60% of the glaciated area in ablation zones is debris covered in these three basins. There are a total of 889 moraine dammed lakes. 2190 glaciers distributed in 14 representative basins of the Himalaya have been monitored for advance/retreat based on the satellite images of 1989-91 to 2004-05 periods(15 years). 75% of the glaciers have shown retreat, 8% have shown advance where as 17% have shown no change. Average loss in area of the glaciers is 3.75%. Annual mass balances have been computed for about 700 glaciers well distributed in the Himalayas for the period 2005-2007. Most of the glaciers have shown negative mass balanve.