Independent: Ice-capped roof of world turns to desert

Some alarming news from the Tibetan Plateau where Chinese scientists estimate that the region's glaciers are receding at a rate of 50 per cent every decade. The melting may eventually turn the vast interior tundras into desert which would devestate the region's water sources. As noted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, "the melting glaciers will ultimately trigger more droughts, expand desertification and increase sand storms... and eventually lead to an ecological catastrophe." The Independent further reports that "perhaps worst of all, the melting threatens to disrupt water supplies over much of Asia. Many of the continent's greatest rivers - including the Yangtze, the Indus, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Mekong and the Yellow River - rise on the plateau."

It goes without saying that focused research and international cooperation is desperately needed. More importantly, long term contingency plans need to be mapped out now. The lives of almost two billion people who depend on Himalayan waters is at stake.

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