in the plains . The HKH region stores about half of the ice mass in HMA, provisioning freshwater to almost 869 million people in the Indus, Tarim, Ganges and Brahmaputra river basins. While the warming climate increases the melt-water runoff enhancing water supply, it is indeed at the cost of glacier-mass reduction that would eventually reduce melt water and impact the people's livelihood downstream in the future . The melt runoff from the region plays an important role in downstream agriculture such as in the case of Indus where two-thirds of total irrigation withdrawal is from melt runoff in the pre-monsoon season . Changes in cryosphere and other environmental changes have already impacted people living in high-mountain areas and are likely to introduce new challenges for water, energy and food security in the future .
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report