About the

Glaciology Curriculum

The Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) jointly organized the Indo-Swiss Capacity Building Programme on Himalayan Glaciology. The Programme consisted of two levels – Level 1 included classroom training and Level 2 included a field visit to a selected glacier in the Indian Himalayan Region.

The programme was organized under the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE) at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as part of technical and knowledge support under the Indian Himalayas Climate Adaptation Programme (IHCAP), a project of SDC. The trainings were conducted by both the Indian and the Swiss faculty with an aim of enhancing the scientific capacity of young Indian researchers to monitor glaciers and assess the impacts of climate change on the cryosphere in downstream regions. As a result of the Programme, 51 researchers from India were trained between 2013 and 2015. Listing of the academic and research partner institutions is available here. Following the conclusion of the Programme, the teaching material provided by the faculty members was compiled to enable access and dissemination as curriculum material.

The Glaciology Curriculum consists of 19 modules covering various aspects of glaciology with focus on providing understanding about glacier dynamics, glacier process and landforms, impacts of changing climate on glacier behavior and glacier hazards. The curriculum provides a global perspective with emphasis on the Himalayan and the Alps regions. Each module comprises of the following four sections: summary, presentations, exercises and references.

(The modules are being provided for academic purposes and in case the material is being used, we would request to appropriately acknowledge the contributors.)