Glaciers, glacial lakes and glacial lake outburst floods in the Khumbu region, Nepal

Climate changes have a direct impact on glaciers that ultimately results in glacial retreat, creating a high risk from catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). The GLOFs are glacier disaster, which is the result of sudden discharge of large volume of water with debris from proglacial or supraglacial lakes in valley downstream. The research on glaciers would give the light on the increasing effect of climate change as glaciers are the sensitive indicator of climate change and create the mitigations for the damages of it. Here, the information regarding the glaciers, glacial lakes and GLOFs in the Khumbu region were reviewed from previous studies. This gives a general overview of the Khumbu region and its glacial components. Khumbu region is one of the most glacierized regions with the ‘Khumbu glacier’, the largest glacier of Nepal. The retreating of glaciers in the Khumbu region is also evidenced by the increase in glacial lakes and leading to the potential danger GLOFs which result in destruction of downstream settlement. The mitigating measures needs to implement immediately to prevent future GLOFs prone destructions.