Monday, March 14 2005 12:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Geneva: Global warming is causing Himalayan glaciers to rapidly retreat, threatening to cause water shortages for hundreds of millions of people who rely on glacier-dependent rivers in China, India and Nepal, World Wild Fund (WWF) warned today (Mar 14, 2005).

The warning by the global conservation group comes as WWF released a new report, which it said exposes the rate of retreat of Himalayan glaciers accelerating as global warming increases.

The report indicates glaciers in the region - which represent the greatest concentration of ice on the planet after the Arctic poles - are now receding at an average rate of 33 feet per year.

"The rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers will first increase the volume of water in rivers, causing widespread flooding," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF for Nature's Global Climate Change Programme in a statement.

"But in a few decades this situation will change and the water level in rivers will decline, meaning massive economic and environmental problems for people in western China, Nepal and northern India."

Himalayan glaciers feed into seven of Asia's greatest rivers - the Ganga, Indus, Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow rivers - ensuring a year-round water supply to hundreds of millions of people in the Indian subcontinent and China.

The WWF report was published in the run-up to two meetings in London on climate change organized by Britain as current head of the G8 group of industrialized nations.