A new look at roles of the cryosphere in sustainable development

Abstract

While the cryosphere may bring in adverse impacts on natural and built environment, it may also provide benefits resulting from cryosphere services. By looking into the effect of the cryosphere on human-being, the study develops a unified approach in the analysis of cryospheric risks and services, with one focusing on the adverse impacts by cryospheric hazards and another emphasizing on the benefits that people can obtain from the natural capitals in the cryosphere. Meanwhile, climate change could further alter and complicate the roles of the cryosphere, not only by the changes in risks to cryospheric hazards, but also the changes in services that could potentially add more risks. The study further proposed a risk-based approach for the development of climate adaptation in the cryosphere. The approach essentially takes options to reduce exposure and vulnerability of societies to cryospheric hazards, and to better manage natural capitals and demands together with enhancing utility of the cryosphere, so as to maintain the benefit of cryosphere services in a sustainable way. The study further addresses the role of cryosphere services in strengthening sustainable development in terms of its relation with the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and provides a preliminary results on how the services contributes to SDGs. Overall, the approach developed in this study creates a new way to comprehensively assess the effect of cryosphere changes on our society and identify measures to maximize the benefit while minimizing the risk in relation to the cryosphere.