Environment › Climate science
Cryosphere, oceans and sea level
Ice, oceans and the rising sea: glaciers and glacial lakes, permafrost, polar ice, ocean heat and acidity, and sea level. Prelims has asked which rivers rise from which Himalayan glaciers, and about the source and course of the Teesta.
Showing 1 of 5 subjects, those that changed from 16 to 31 July 2026.Show all
The Glacial Lake Atlas
Copy link to The Glacial Lake AtlasPrelims and Mains
Most of the lakes that threaten Indian valleys are not in India, which makes a warning system a question of what neighbours are willing to share.
- The Glacial Lake Atlas of the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) maps 28,043 lakes in the Himalayan river basins, almost 73 per cent of them outside India.
- The NRSC works under the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and the Defence Geoinformatics Research Establishment under the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
- Data sharing with China and Nepal is therefore part of the warning system rather than a courtesy.
Ladakh3,219
Arunachal Pradesh2,188
Sikkim733
Jammu and Kashmir546
Himachal Pradesh537
Uttarakhand347
What changed
1 Sep 2026
29 Jul 2026Update
- ISRO has built a database of more than 2,000 glaciers in Ladakh and an inventory of 3,219 glacial lakes larger than 0.25 hectare, prepared under the National Hydrology Project.
- Outburst flood risk has been modelled for the high risk lakes, and a satellite based landslide alert system has issued village level alerts in Ladakh since 2023.
Also filed elsewhere
- Hydropower in the Himalaya · on Wind, hydro and other renewables
The mountains hold most of the fall a turbine wants and most of the hazard a project cannot survive.