Glacier Retreat in Nepal: Data Dashboard on Melting Glaciers

Nepal's most complete national glacier inventory counts about 3,808 glaciers covering roughly 3,902 square kilometres, with an estimated ice reserve of around 312 cubic kilometres. These figures come from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) study 'Glacier Status in Nepal and Decadal Change from 1980 to 2010 Based on Landsat Data' (Bajracharya and colleagues, published 2014), which mapped every glacier for roughly 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010 using Landsat satellite imagery and a digital elevation model.

Most of Nepal's glaciers are small: the average glacier is only about 1 square kilometre. The largest is Ngozumpa Glacier in the Khumbu (Everest) region at roughly 79 square kilometres. Glaciers are concentrated in the high Himalaya along the northern border, feeding the headwaters of the Koshi, Gandaki (Kaligandaki) and Karnali river systems that millions of Nepalis depend on downstream.

A quirk of the record is that the number of glaciers actually rose over time, from about 3,429 in 1977 to 3,808 in 2010, an increase of roughly 11 percent. This is not growth: as glaciers thin and shrink, single ice bodies fragment into several smaller ones, so the count goes up even as total ice goes down. Reading Nepal's glacier trend therefore means watching area and volume, not the headline glacier count.

Between 1977 and 2010, Nepal lost about 24 percent of its total glacier area, equivalent to an estimated 29 percent decline in ice reserve, according to the ICIMOD decadal-change study. Over the same period the glacier-covered share of Nepal's territory fell from about 3.6 percent to about 2.6 percent. Reputable summaries of the data, including recent reporting by The Kathmandu Post, round this to roughly a quarter of Nepal's glacier area lost across the 1977 to 2010 window.

The retreat was not evenly spread. About 163 of the smallest glaciers, together covering some 33.71 square kilometres, vanished entirely during the study period. Larger valley glaciers shrank at their snouts and thinned across their surfaces rather than disappearing outright. The combined signal is unambiguous: less ice, more exposed rock and debris, and expanding meltwater lakes in the space glaciers used to occupy.

Loss has also accelerated. ICIMOD's regional assessments find that glaciers across the wider Hindu Kush Himalaya lost mass about 65 percent faster in 2011 to 2020 than in the preceding decade. In other words, the 1977 to 2010 figures likely understate the pace of change now underway on Nepal's ice.

There is no single national retreat rate, because Nepal's glaciers respond at very different speeds depending on size, elevation, aspect and debris cover. Studies of individual Nepali and Himalayan glaciers commonly report terminus (snout) retreat of roughly 10 to 60 metres per year since the 1970s. In the Khumbu region, for example, a survey of 15 glaciers between 1976 and 2007 found an average retreat of about 28 metres per year, while some smaller, cleaner glaciers retreated faster.

The clearest, best-monitored signals come from Nepal's two benchmark glaciers. Yala Glacier in Langtang has retreated about 784 metres and lost roughly 66 percent of its area since it was first measured in the 1970s. Rikha Samba Glacier in Mustang retreated about 431 metres between 1989 and 2013, an average of roughly 18 metres per year. Both are also thinning: independent mass-balance work (Stumm and colleagues, 2021) recorded Yala losing about 0.80 metres of water-equivalent ice per year and Rikha Samba about 0.39 metres per year over 2011 to 2017.

Retreat rate and thinning matter because they translate directly into downstream consequences: shifting dry-season river flows, new and enlarging glacial lakes, and rising glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) risk. Where you see fast snout retreat, you often see a growing proglacial lake filling the vacated valley.

Yala Glacier, in the Langtang Valley of Rasuwa district north of Kathmandu, is Nepal's most-studied glacier and the training ground where roughly 100 glaciologists have learned their craft since ICIMOD began annual fieldwork there in 2011. It is a small, accessible glacier of about 1.6 square kilometres, spanning roughly 5,168 to 5,661 metres above sea level. It has been monitored since 1974, giving Nepal one of the longest ice records in the entire 3,500-kilometre Himalayan arc.

Yala is now forecast to effectively disappear by the 2040s, and scientists expect it to be among the first Nepali glaciers declared 'dead'. It is the only Himalayan glacier listed on the Global Glacier Casualty List, launched in 2024. Since researchers started work in 2011 the ice has retreated so far that the original base camp had to be moved uphill.

On 12 May 2025, as part of Nepal's contribution to the United Nations International Year of Glaciers' Preservation 2025, scientists, Buddhist monks, villagers and officials held a tribute at over 5,000 metres and unveiled two granite memorial plaques near the glacier's base. One inscription notes that Yala is one of roughly 54,000 glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalaya, most of which are expected to vanish this century under current warming. The ceremony made Yala a global symbol of Himalayan ice loss and the search phrase 'yala glacier disappearing' a recurring one with every climate summit.

Rikha Samba Glacier lies in the Hidden Valley of Mustang district, in the upper Kaligandaki (Gandaki) basin in the rain-shadow of the Dhaulagiri massif. It is Nepal's second in-situ benchmark glacier, monitored by ICIMOD and partners and reported to the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS). Japanese researchers first carried out glaciological measurements here in the 1970s, so like Yala it carries a decades-long record.

Rikha Samba has shown even faster snout retreat than Yala in some periods, shrinking about 431 metres between 1989 and 2013 (roughly 18 metres per year). Its surface thinning has been somewhat slower than Yala's, at about 0.39 metres of water-equivalent per year over 2011 to 2017, reflecting its higher, drier setting. Together, Yala and Rikha Samba give Nepal two well-calibrated 'thermometers' that ground-truth the satellite-based national picture.

Because Rikha Samba feeds the Kaligandaki, its behaviour is closely watched for what it implies about long-term water supply and hydropower in central-western Nepal, where the Kaligandaki corridor hosts major river systems and irrigation.

Nepal's glacier data come from a mix of satellite mapping and on-the-ground fieldwork. The national inventories and decadal-change figures rely on Landsat imagery analysed by ICIMOD, the Kathmandu-headquartered regional body for the Hindu Kush Himalaya. On the ground, ICIMOD and Nepali partners run the benchmark programmes on Yala and Rikha Samba, submitting standardised measurements to the World Glacier Monitoring Service so Nepal's ice can be compared with glaciers worldwide.

The Government of Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), under the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, is the official body responsible for cryosphere, glacial-lake and river monitoring. Academic teams publish peer-reviewed mass-balance and geodetic studies (for example in Earth System Data and The Cryosphere) that refine the numbers this dashboard uses.

Two cautions apply to every glacier statistic. First, remote-sensing area figures carry uncertainty, especially over debris-covered ice that looks like rock from space, so treat single-percent differences as indicative. Second, dates matter: the 3,808-glacier count and the 24 percent loss figure describe the 1977 to 2010 window, and current loss is running faster than that historical average.

Nepal's glaciers are the frozen headwaters of South Asia. Meltwater sustains dry-season flow in the Koshi, Gandaki and Karnali rivers that supply drinking water, irrigation and hydropower for Nepal and hundreds of millions of people downstream in the Ganges basin. As glaciers retreat, that buffer weakens: flows may rise for a few decades as ice melts, then decline once the ice is gone.

Retreat also fills valleys with unstable meltwater lakes. A 2020 ICIMOD and UNDP inventory identified 47 potentially dangerous glacial lakes across the Koshi (42), Gandaki (3) and Karnali (2) basins that feed Nepal, each capable of a sudden glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) that can destroy villages, bridges and hydropower plants far downstream.

The long-range outlook is stark. ICIMOD's landmark HI-WISE assessment (Water, Ice, Society and Ecosystems in the Hindu Kush Himalaya, June 2023) projects that Hindu Kush Himalayan glaciers could lose up to about 80 percent of their current ice volume by 2100 under high emissions, and still perhaps 30 to 50 percent even if warming is held near 1.5 degrees Celsius. Nepal's response, aligned with the IPCC Sixth Assessment and the UN International Year of Glaciers' Preservation 2025, focuses on GLOF early-warning systems, water storage and adaptation for mountain communities.