2,000-year-old Buddhist site in Kashmir faces “high risk of collapse by 2050”: study
A scientific study warns that the 2,000-year-old Zehanpora Buddhist complex in Kashmir is at high risk of collapse by 2050 due to soil erosion. Researchers used remote sensing and GIS data to quantify the impact of riverbank erosion on the archaeological site.
Why it matters
The findings highlight the urgent need for conservation interventions to protect historical and cultural heritage sites from climate-driven environmental degradation.
Discovered following photographs found in a French museum archive in 2025, the 2,000-year-old Zehanpora Buddhist complex in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district faces “a high risk of collapse within the next three decades”, according to a study by experts.
Predicting future erosion possibilities, the study estimates that 10,122 square metres “could be lost by 2050 without undertaking any preventive interventions”. The study has been undertaken by experts Bilal Hassan, Mohammad Ajmal Shah, and Mumtaz A. Yatoo, from the Centre of Central Asian Studies, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, and has been published in the Ancient Asia journal in July this year.
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