Response to Discussion Points derived from Reynolds' Paper

Jack D. Ives

Some responses to Kumar's prompting:

1. Terminology: Jokulhlaup refers to the "leaping" of a glacier due to the lift of subglacial water which has reached a critical pressure due to sustained accumulation or geothermal melting. It should not be applied to the sort of event typical of the Himalayas, which involve sudden breaking of ice and or moraine dams.

jökulhlaup: at the risk of over-enlarging a small point! The word is traditional Icelandic of many centuries ago. While I do not pretend to any proficiency in the language, I have worked with Icelandic farmers whose ancestors first experienced the wrath of j's for over 50 years. To them, floods that derive from glaciers are jökulhlaup.

Thorarinsson, the original scientific authority, rather than farmer (who incidentally often were competent natural scientists, as I am sure is the case for Sherpas and many other mountain people) differentiated between "vulcanogen j" and "glaciogen j".

In my opening address I made a necessary distinction between floods deriving from water within, upon, under, and dammed by glaciers and those caused by the breach of end moraines that acted as dams holding up melt-water. In regions such as the Himalaya, where the lower tracts of glaciers are often buried by surface moraine for several km, it will be difficult to separate "pro-glacial/moraine-dammed lakes" from en-, sub-, and supra-glacial lakes. Imja Lake certainly began as a series of small supra-glacial lakes; possibly Tsho Rolpa likewise? And during lake development, the supra- variety may merge into the moraine-dammed variety.

The first actual precise measurement of a glacier "leap", to the best of my knowledge, was made by Dr. Matthew Roberts on Skeidararjokull in Iceland (Roberts, pers. comm. April, 2005).

2. In the case of Tsho Rolpa, response to local pleas for help took years. The government of Nepal got involved more than ten years after the alarm had first been raised, and only after "donor organizations" had taken the lead.

Dr. Vic Galay and I , and colleagues in WECS (HMG) may have been the first in Nepal to raise concern in the context of Dig Tsho and Imja Lake. Neither the government nor ICIMOD, despite the latter's publication of Occnl. Paper No. 5 (Ives, 1986) took up the problem (opportunity in the case of ICIMOD). I would like to hear from Dipak Gyawali on this point.

3. "Political" problems introduced significant and persistent inefficiencies. The embroiled agencies included the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat, Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ICIMOD, the Dutch, and the Japanese. The fact that the entire project did not die was due only to the fortuitous and unremunerated persistence of a private consultant. In other words, the procedures for dealing with the problem were inadequate, and the INGOs and national agencies were unable to collaborate effectively.

I have nothing to say here except to endorse Kumar's comment on the failure to achieve any effective collaboration.

5. The media frenzy surrounding GLOF predictions in 1997 was largely due to the political disharmony alluded to above, with disgruntled experts providing tendentious commentary to the press. The absence of an "organization with the authority and scientific gravitas" to put a lid on the situation at that time was partially due to the lack of hard data; however, despite the fact that much more is now known, we still lack such an authoritative agency, and the media still promotes and exploits doomsday scenarios.

Doomsday scenarios! I applaud John Reynolds's "exposure" of the New Scientist/Fred Pearce article so outrageously misquoting him re "hundreds of millions". However, while it may be argued that exaggeration/over-dramatization may be necessary to catch the attention of people/decision makers, it can certainly do a lot of harm. An intelligent readership will also learn to disbelieve most things that come into print. The case of Lake Sarez (slightly off-course re the presence e-conference) is a good example. Rather than repeat this story, unless someone would like the full account, I will merely stipulate that it is to be found in Himalayan Perceptions.

7. The Arun III project nearly went forward on the basis of slipshod hazard assessments. Specifically, no glacial hazards were studied because old maps were used, and these maps showed no glacier lakes. A belated study was derailed by largely irrelevant data from a neighboring valley which raised the spectre of disastrous publicity -- not of an actual disaster. There may have been other reasons to oppose the project, but the fact is that a decision of great economic importance to Nepal was made on the basis of an irrelevancy.

My recollection of decisions relating to Arun III is that it was probably the new President of the World Bank who personally killed the project (again, consult Gyawali). At the 1995 Paris consultancy I think we were all in agreement that threat of glacial lake outburst flood was not sufficiently serious to warrant any decision to delay or cancel construction. Had Arun III been completed any possible disaster would likely be of an environmental and economic nature.

9. Predictions of disaster can be disastrous for tourism. The erroneous prediction of an event at Huaraz, Peru, led to $20 million in losses, and the offending press release remains accessible on the NASA Web site.

The point brought out by Reynolds is most relevant. The local people can also be victims of such wild reporting. Our concern over reaction to the so-called Lake Sarez threat in Tajikistan was that a military force could conceivably be used to ensure forced and unnecessary evacuation of some 30 villages. In this instance we had the advantage of access to the President of T and, at least in this instance, he proved to be a man of honour, despite his disappointment at the potential loss of large sums in foreign/UN aid to help avert the until then assumed catastrophe.

10. ICIMOD's list of dangerous glacial lakes in Nepal and Bhutan is not based on reliable data, and characterizations of Imja Tsho, in particular, misrepresent the hazard.

ICIMOD's list of dangerous, or all, glacial lakes, has been used to aid over-dramatization. This has become a noticeable element in UNEP politics. Nevertheless, I suspect much of the difficulty lies with ICIMOD's historic reluctance to submit to vigorous "outside" critical review and to continue a policy of "in-house" publication. But I suspect also that Reynolds and Ives have access to "in-house" information that would be indelicate to introduce here.

11. Recent work by Reynolds has resulted in a Multi-Criteria Analysis protocol for the assessment of glacial hazard; this has been accepted by the Union Commission for the Cryospheric Sciences and should be applied uniformly in all GLOF hazard determinations.

Reynolds and colleagues have made a superb contribution in this area.

12. We now have the technical ability to assess GLOF hazards throughout the Himalayan region.

Agreed, but either the political will is lacking, or else other serious problems are providing a smoke screen.

13. Emotive and subjective views are not acceptable and should be exposed for what they are. However, Reynolds believes that it will take another large disaster before the complacent donor community is moved to upgrade assessment procedures.

Should we wait for another large disaster? Why not try to attract more attention to this issue via the current e-conference?

14. Tsho Rolpa remains a hazard. Funding is needed to reassess the situation around the lake and also to implement a remote sensing monitoring program for the larger catchment. Without reliable information, we face the Scylla and Charybdis of panic (induced by yellow journalism) and insouciance (induced by complacent authorities).

In terms of early warning using remote sensing technology for Tsho Rolpa, this is certainly available. To the best of my knowledge, a complex warning system was set up after our review of Lake Sarez in 1999. Can we get a description of how this was done from Dr. Jörg Hanisch, who was with me on that memorable occasion? Equally important - the locals in Rolwaling should be asked to record their experience. This would fit in with Seth's efforts for development of effective aid to the area, aid that would be guided primarily by the people on the spot.

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