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Study finds instability risks on the Tibetan Plateau through 2100
Researchers link increasing soil water and glacier melt on the plateau to a higher likelihood of geological disasters.
A new study warns that the Tibetan Plateau, often described as Asia’s water tower, is moving toward a more unpredictable and unstable future, according to research published in Nature Communications.
The work uses a measure called entropy to assess how much disorder is building up in the plateau’s soil moisture system, analyzing data from 2000 to 2024.
Lead author Chen Xiaosong, a physicist at Beijing Normal University, said that from now to the end of this century, rising soil water and intensified glacier melting could continually trigger geological disasters.
The plateau’s soil moisture patterns are closely tied to water and climate conditions affecting nearly two billion people across South and East Asia, the study said, underscoring the potential scale of downstream impacts reported by SCMP Economy.