A Scientist's Fight Against Disasters in Kashmir

Dr. Kainat Aziz uses science, fieldwork, and satellites to turn natural warnings into actionable alerts.

- Aashiq Hussain Andrabi

The Himalayas are warming almost twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and Kashmir is already feeling the heat.

Cloudbursts flood villages in minutes, landslides cut highways overnight, and glaciers are melting faster than scientists can measure.

At the centre of this unfolding story is Dr. Kainat Aziz, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Water Research, IIT Guwahati, who has turned these alarming signals into her life's work.

Raised in Sopore, Kainat knows these hazards as childhood memories: winter trips to Jammu halted by rockfalls, and supplies running thin when a single slide sealed the highway.

Now she uses satellites, sensors, and long days in the field to track the fragile balance of glaciers, rivers, and mountain slopes. Her research powers early warning systems and disaster plans that could mean the difference between an evacuation and a tragedy.

In this interview with Kashmir Observer, Kainat breaks down the science in plain words, explains why Kashmir's mountains are warming so fast, and shares what must change, now, to keep families safe.

Kainat, growing up in Sopore, did you ever picture yourself trekking glaciers and decoding Himalayan hazards?

Not at all. As a kid, I just knew the mountains made life tricky. Every winter my family would travel to Jammu like many Kashmiri families. We'd get stuck for hours on the highway whenever a landslide blocked the road. Supplies would run short.

I didn't call it a "hazard" back then, but I could feel how one landslide could ripple through entire communities.

Only later did I realise these events connect to climate, geology, and where people live. That curiosity slowly pulled me toward glaciers, landslides, and the science behind them.

This summer everyone's talking about cloudbursts and heat waves. Why do they feel more intense now?