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The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) long-term satellite imagery covering the catchments of Indian Himalayan river basins from 1984 to 2023 have shown significant changes in glacial lakes
According to the ISRO, of the 2,431 lakes larger than 10 hectares identified during 2016-17, 676 glacial lakes have notably expanded since 1984
130 of these lakes are situated within India, with 65, 7 and 58 lakes located in the Indus, Ganga, and Brahmaputra River basins, respectively.
Classification
The glacial lakes are categorised based on their formation process into four broad categories, namely
Moraine-dammed (water dammed by moraine),
A moraine is material left behind by a moving glacier. This material is usually soil and rock. Just as rivers carry along all sorts of debris and silt that eventually builds up to form deltas, glaciers transport all sorts of dirt and boulders that build up to form moraines.
Classification
Ice-dammed (water dammed by ice),
Erosion (water dammed in depressions formed by erosion),
other glacial lakes
Among the 676 expanding lakes, the majority of them are Moraine-dammed [307] followed by Erosion [265], other [96], and Ice-dammed [8] glacial lakes, respectively
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