In the Hindu-Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region, an area approximately 40,800 km 2 is covered by the glaciers ( Bolch et al., 2012) with a total of 9675 glaciers in the Indian Himalaya ( Raina and Srivastava, 2008). For instance, the Baspa Bamak Proglacial Lake at the snout of Baspa Bamak glacier has expanded continuously from 2000 onward. Under the warming climate, formation and progressive expansion of glacial lakes is expected because of the glacier recession in the basin. The higher area changes (53.0 ± 0.4%), of small glaciers <0.5 km 2 mark their sensitivity to climatic changes especially rising temperature. Thus, the changes in temperature and precipitation may be the major causes of accelerating the glacier ablation. The mean annual T min and T max indicated a rising trend at a rate of 0.076 and 0.071 ☌ a -1. Importantly, the T min has increased significantly at 95% confidence level during all the studied periods. Simultaneously, a trend estimation of observed climatic data (1976/1985–2008) of three meteorological stations (Sangla, Rakcham, and Chitkul) using Mann Kendall test, Sen's Slope estimator and linear regression test revealed an increase in temperature and rainfall while a decline in snowfall. Overall, the clean, small sized, low-altitude glaciers with south to southwest aspect and relatively steep slope have lost maximum area, which indicated a major control of these factors on the glacier changes. The overall glacier retreat studied for 33 glaciers varied from 3.3 ± 0.03%, that is, 0.87 ± 0.06 km at a rate of 17.2 ± 1 m a -1 to 30 ± 6.6%, that is, 0.60 ± 0.04 km at a rate of 24.8 ± 0.2 m a -1. Out of the total 109 glaciers inventoried through Landsat TM imagery (2011), 36 glaciers were found to be heavily debris covered (32.5 ± 2.0%). Thus, using Landsat data (MSS, ETM and TM), changes in glacier area, length, and debris cover have been delineated in the Baspa basin, which is a highly glacierized sub-basin of the Satluj River in the western Himalaya. Himalayan glaciers are normally difficult to monitor through field observations because of highly rugged and extremely inaccessible mountainous terrain.

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