glaciers
The Himalaya – Changing Landscapes photograph exhibition resumed its European tour this spring. Our fourth exhibition was held in Bonn, Germany 1-12 June 2009 at the Robert- Schuman-Platz. Thereafter the exhibition will move to Switzerland later in the summer.
New photos have been added to the concept of Himalaya - Changing Landscapes. The repeat mountain panoramas and photos of...
Climate change is currently taking place at an unprecedented rate and will have potentially profound and widespread effects on the availability of and access to water resources. The mean global temperature rose by 0.74 °C over the past century. The rate of warming in the Himalayan region has been even greater than global average.
The greater Himalayan region sustains about 150...
Almost a century ago, fears began to be expressed about the possible impact of the rise in atmospheric temperature on mountain glaciers. The fears led to the initiation of concerted scientific efforts to identify and examine the fluctuations along the front-snout of glaciers. It was believed that such studies, over the next century or so, would enable scientists to establish the relationship...
Climate change is set to undermine human rights on a massive scale. International human-rights law states that, 'In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.' But - as the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has documented in detail - rich countries' continued excessive greenhouse-gas emissions are depriving millions of people of the very water, soil, and...
The Khangchendzonga Biosphere Reserve (KBR) is one of the latest additions to the protected areas network in the Indian Himalayan Region. Located in the picturesque state of Sikkim in the eastern Indian Himalayan Region with snow-clad mountain peaks, numerous glaciers, a snow- and glacier-fed stream network and high-altitude lakes, this biosphere reserve (BR) is named after the world’s...
In high mountain regions, a number of natural catastrophes are related to glaciers, eg, outbursts of glacier-dammed lakes or interglacial water reservoirs, glaciers destroyed by volcanic eruptions, and various types of glacier surges. But the glacier catastrophe in 2002 in the North Caucasus was a rare phenomenon resulting from a combination of a glacier surge and a high-speed ice-water-stone...
Here is a valuable synthesis of the contemporary knowledge about the state of world glaciers, taking into account the global importance of the phenomenon of recent glacial retreat, its recent evolution especially in the context of global warming, and the social, cultural, and political aspects of their presence and retreat. This book follows an important symposium held in Wengen (CH), where...
Reform of water policy is urgently needed to avert severe national, regional and local water scarcities that will depress agricultural production and worsen water-related health problems. Water is abundant globally but scarce locally. Of the earth’s 1,360 million cubic kilometres of water, 97 percent is in the oceans. Three-quarters of the freshwater is in glaciers and icebergs, another...
The Greater Himalayas hold the largest mass of ice outside polar regions and are the source of the 10 largest rivers in Asia. Rapid reduction in the volume of Himalayan glaciers due to climate change is occurring. The cascading effects of rising temperatures and loss of ice and snow in the region are affecting, for example, water availability (amounts, seasonality), biodiversity (endemic...
As the international community is gearing towards shifting values and attitudes making adjustments in trending environmental protection campaigns, the accepted paradigm points towards the need to minimize the impacts on mountain landscapes subjected to climate change due to global warming. Hitherto, research policy and the subsequent funding for proposals dealing with climate change have...
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