Indian scientist concerned over landslide, seismicity in Himalayas

<p class="p1">Scientists specializing in different aspects of the Himalayas held a talk on 'Himalayan seismicity–risk awareness and mitigation, and journey of black carbon towards Himalayan cryosphere.’</p>
<p class="p1">Different aspects of the Himalayas like landslide disaster risk reduction, Himalayan seismicity, risk awareness, and mitigation, and journey of black carbon towards the Himalayan cryosphere were discussed.</p>
<p class="p1">The discussions were part of an online celebration of ‘Himalaya Diwas’ by Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology.</p>
<p class="p1">Dr. Vikram Gupta, scientist, WIHG, spoke on ‘Landslide Disaster Risk Reduction (L-DRR)' Strategy and emphasized the importance of risk reduction caused by the landslide.</p>
<p class="p1">He explained how risk reduction measures are a good investment and said that for risk management, it is always better to have a good understanding of landslide processes.</p>
<p class="p1">Dr. Ajay Paul, scientist spoke on ‘Himalayan Seismicity, Risk Awareness, and Mitigation’, he explained how the Himalayan region is prone to earthquake activity.</p>
<p class="p1">He described how an earthquake could be hazardous to the various lifeline of the people and explained what one should do before an earthquake, during an earthquake, and after an earthquake, which can mitigate the hazardous impacts of an earthquake.</p>
<p class="p1">Elucidating the ‘Journey of Black Carbon towards Himalayan Cryosphere,’ Dr. Chhavi P. Pandey, from the institute, said that black carbon aerosol plays a unique and important role in the Himalayan environment. She explained how transportation of Black carbon and other pollutant takes place towards the Himalaya cryosphere.</p>
<p class="p1">Dr. Sameer Tiwari, a professor from WIHG highlighted the ‘Use of Geothermal Resources for heat utilization.'</p>
<p class="p1"> He described that geothermal energy is relatively clean and renewable and hence becoming a preferred choice for an alternative energy resource for the future. He said that WIHG has been monitoring around 40 active geothermal springs from the Garhwal and Kumaun Himalayan regions of Uttarakhand.</p>.