{"id":72601,"date":"2020-12-14T18:13:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-14T12:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=72601"},"modified":"2021-05-08T14:03:59","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T08:33:59","slug":"hazardous-ideas-for-himalayas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/hazardous-ideas-for-himalayas\/","title":{"rendered":"Hazardous ideas for Himalayas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Context:\u00a0<\/strong>China\u2019s major hydropower project as a part of its 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), on the Yarlung Zangbo River, in M\u00eadog County in Tibet.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>More on news:<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>The hydropower generation station is expected to provide 300 billion kWh of electricity annually. The Chinese authorities say the project will help the country realise its goal of reaching a carbon emission peak before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060.<\/li>\n<li>Indian counterparts were quick to restate their plans to dam the Himalayas on this side of the border. India is reportedly considering a 10-GW hydropower project in an eastern State.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>What are the various misadventures that can happen due to the building of hydropower dams?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Unavailability of dams:\u00a0<\/strong>Both countries ignore how unviable such \u2018super\u2019 dams projects are, given that they are being planned in an area that is geologically unstable.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Competing dams:<\/strong>\u00a0Over the past 20 years, both China and India have been competing with each other to build hydroelectric dams in this ecologically fragile and seismically vulnerable area.\n<ul>\n<li>There are two hydropower projects in the works in Arunachal Pradesh on the tributaries of the Brahmaputra: the 600 MW Kameng project on the Bichom and Tenga Rivers and the 2,000 MW Subansiri Lower Hydroelectricity Project.<\/li>\n<li>China has already completed 11 out of 55 projects that are planned for the Tibetan region.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Overestimating economic potential:<\/strong>\u00a0In executing these hydroelectric projects, the two countries have overestimated their economic potential and grossly underestimated the earthquake vulnerability of the region.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Earthquakes in the region:<\/strong>\u00a0High seismic zones coincide with areas of high population concentration in the Himalayan region where landslides and glacial lake outburst floods are common.\n<ul>\n<li>About 15% of the great earthquakes of the 20th century occurred in the Himalayan region. The northeast Himalayan bend has experienced several large earthquakes of magnitude 7 and above in the last 100 years, more than the share from other parts of the Himalayas.<\/li>\n<li>The 2015 Gorkha earthquake of magnitude 7.8 in central Nepal resulted in huge losses in the hydropower sector. Nepal lost about 20% of its hydropower capacity consequent to the earthquake.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Landslides<\/strong>: The main mechanisms that contributed to the vulnerability of hydropower projects were found to be landslides, which depend on the intensity of seismic ground shaking and slope gradients.\n<ul>\n<li>Heavy siltation from giant landslides expected in the project sites will severely reduce the water-holding capacity and life expectancy of such dams.<\/li>\n<li>Even without earthquakes, the steep slopes made of soft rocks are bound to slide due to deforestation and road-building.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>What can be done?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Nature reserve<\/strong>: In recent years, the Himalayas have seen the highest rate of deforestation and land use changes. The upper Himalayas should be converted into a nature reserve by an international agreement.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Himalayan river commission<\/strong>: The possibility of a Himalayan River Commission involving all the headwater and downstream countries needs to be explored.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h6><strong>Way forward<\/strong><\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li>India and China, the major players in the region, would be well advised to disengage from military adventurism and seek ways of transforming this \u2018roof of the world\u2019 into a natural reserve for the sake of humanity. Carbon neutrality should not be at the expense of the environment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context:\u00a0China\u2019s major hydropower project as a part of its 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), on the Yarlung Zangbo River, in M\u00eadog County in Tibet. More on news: The hydropower generation station is expected to provide 300 billion kWh of electricity annually. The Chinese authorities say the project will help the country realise its goal of reaching&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/hazardous-ideas-for-himalayas\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Hazardous ideas for Himalayas<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":72583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,1351,1310,9],"tags":[1446,1447],"class_list":["post-72601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-daily-news","category-daily-news-updates","category-public","tag-disas_3","tag-geog_4","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Hazardous-Ideas-for-Himalayas.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":1700772323,"cached_date":1704935591},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}