Schools and clinics are planned, as is a dam to catch snowmelt and provide irrigation for agriculture.
The glaciers of the western Himalayas, whose snowmelt and rains provide the Indus with its water, are dwindling as the world warms up.
Creeks flooded with snowmelt rush towards the Missouri river.
The ruins of old homes strafed by Soviet gunships crowd a gravel streambed that is dry most of the year but runs swiftly with snowmelt come spring.
At the city of Kalach-na-Donu about 65 percent of the annual flow occurs during April and May, compared with about 7 percent in March before the snowmelt begins.
The Danube draws upon a series of right-bank Alpine tributaries, which, through reliance on spring and summer snowmelt, make its regime notably uneven.
Since World War II most scientific exploration has been of an applied nature, with a focus on harnessing irrigation water from the summer snowmelt, geomorphological research into slope stability near transportation routes, and biogeographic field research aimed at increasing the productivity of grasslands and forests.
The Alpine Rhine with its steep gradient, high runoff coefficient (80 percent of the precipitation in its catchment area), pronounced winter minimum, high water in spring from snowmelt, and high early summer maximum resulting from heavy summer rains has a characteristic Alpine regime.
Spring snowmelt in the river's upper basin provides the majority of the annual discharge.
The hydrology of the Sutlej is controlled by spring and summer snowmelt in the Himalayas and by the South Asian monsoon.
The bulk of Denver's water supply comes from spring snowmelt in the mountains that is stored in large reservoirs or diverted from the South Platte River and other streams.
