<
https://theconversation.com/nepals-devastating-floods-reveal-the-danger-of-cascading-hazards-in-himalayas-290655>
"The devastating floods that have swept through the Nepal–Tibet border region
are first and foremost a human tragedy. Hundreds of people have died or remain
missing.
But as scientists begin to reconstruct what happened, the event also exposes
something fundamental about the way we understand natural hazards in high
mountain regions. Mountains and rivers do not reset after an extreme event. A
landslide changes a slope. A flood rearranges a river. A retreating glacier
exposes sediment and unstable ground. Each disturbance changes the conditions
in which the next one occurs. In the Himalayas, those connections can turn
individual hazards into destructive hazard cascades.
Early satellite and seismic evidence indicates that this disaster began high in
the mountains with the collapse of part of a slope and steep glacier in Tibet.
A huge mass of ice and rock travelled rapidly into the valley below, mobilising
water, sediment and debris that then spread through the river system and into
Nepal. The precise mechanics of the event will take time to establish. But
describing it simply as a flood captures only the final stage of a much longer
process.
I am involved in a UK-Indian academic project that starts from a simple
proposition: hazard risk in the Himalayas is not static."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
