There are 3,300 glaciers in the Nepalese Himalayas and 2,300 of them contain glacial lakes.
These lakes are quietly growing because of rising temperatures, but a sufficiently close eye is not being kept on them, campaigners say.
Nobody knows how many are close to bursting, and no steps have been taken to establish early warning systems for the villages downstream. A burst lake would cause flash floods which could sweep away people, houses, roads and bridges in Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and India. Such disasters have already happened more than a dozen times around Nepal in the last 70 years. A glacial lake burst in Khumbu, Nepal, in 1985, killing at least 20 people. It also washed away a hydropower station, a trekking trail and numerous bridges. Despite the real threat, no systematic on-the-ground research has taken place since the mid-1990s.
Between 1970 and 1989, Japanese researchers discovered most of the glaciers in the Khumbu region had retreated 30-60m. In Nepal's Dhaulagiri region, field studies until 1994 showed the same trend. And Nepal's most studied glacier in Tsorong Himal underwent a 10m retreat between 1978 and 1989. For now, there is reliance on satellite data. This even shows some glaciers are stable or advancing, particularly in the west and north.
We urgently need to update our glaciological data otherwise we won't have any warning when disaster strikes. The data on glacial retreat on the Himalayas has been compiled by the DRDO which is reproduced as under:-
| Sr. No. | Name of Glacier | State/Basin | Receding Rate(M/Year) |
| 1 | Barashingri | Himachal Pradesh | 44.3 |
| 2 | Bilare Bange | Sutlej | 2.6 |
| 3 | Shaune Garang | Sutlej | 26.4 |
| 4 | Jhampa Garang | Sutlej | 19.9 |
| 5 | Parbati galacier | Beas | 52 |
| 6 | Gangotri | Uttranchal | 17.5 |
| 7 | Milam | Uttranchal | 13.3 |
| 8 | Pindar | Uttranchal | 23.5 |
| 9 | Dokriani | Uttranchal | 17 |
| 10 | Zemu | Sikkim | 13.2 |
(Source: DRDO & Ak Kulkarni et al.)
The retreating glaciers would disturb the water cycle of the Himalays and cause major ecologocal disaster besides causing major water scarcity in the entire region.