Glacial Decline (ii)

Many areas of the world are partially or even wholly dependent on glacial melt for their water sources, especially during the dry season. However, it's not just a problem of shortages of water - exacerbated flooding is also a common symptom of the worlds melting glaciers. This is as a result of the fact that in the absence of glaciers, precipitation is not stored in the high altitude areas as ice and snow, but is discharged rapidly downstream, thereby causing the floods. 

An example of this in the Himalayas, and the surrounding countries. The glaciers there are sometimes termed as Earth's 'Third Pole' due to their magnitude in terms of the volumes of fresh water stored there (Climate etc). Almost 1/3 of global population is at least in part affected by glacial melt water of the Himalayas. Immerzeel et al. 2013 suggest that overall discharge is expected to increase at least until 2100 due to losses in the mass balance of the glaciers.


Source: RedOrbit

However whilst this seems like a good thing, this is not taking into account the temporal dimension of when this discharge is taking place. Most of this discharge is during the wet months, and then there is very little during the dry months, as the constant 'baseflow' outputs from glacial melt declines. Hence, there is predicted to be increased levels of flooding during the wet seasons, whilst drought is likely to become more of an issue during the summer months. This will likely have a significant impact on agricultural production, as water resources will become more scarce, whilst damage due to inundation is set to rise in tandem.