The Global Social and Economic Consequences of Mountain Cryospheric Change

Golam Rasul,David Molden

doi:10.3389/fenvs.2019.00091

Abstract

Mountain cryosphere provides fresh water and other ecosystem services to half of humanity. The loss of mountain cryosphere due to global warming is already evident in many parts of the world, which has direct implications to people living in mountain areas and indirect implication to people living downstream of glaciated river basins. Despite the growing concerns, the relationship between cryosphere change and human society has yet to be assessed systematically. A better understanding of how cryosphere change affects human systems and human security would provide much needed support to the planning of global and regional actions to mitigate impacts and facilitate adaptation. This paper synthesizes the current evidence for and potential impacts of cryosphere change on water, energy, food, and the environment in different mountain regions in the world. The analysis reveals that the changes in the cryosphere and the associated environmental change has already impacted people living in high mountain areas and are likely to introduce new challenges for water, energy, and food security, and exacerbate ecosystem and environmental degradation in the future. The effects of cryospheric changes are also likely to extend to downstream river basins where glacier melt contributes significantly to dry season river flows and supports irrigation, fisheries, and navigation, as well as water supply to many big cities. Appropriate adaptive and mitigative measures are needed to prevent risks and uncertainties being further compounded

Highlights

Mountains provide multiple ecosystem services vital for human well-being (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; Messerli et al, 2007)
The literature search was guided by two broad questions: (1) What are the observed impacts of cryosphere change on water, food, energy security, and the ecosystem in high mountain areas? And (2) what are the expected impacts of cryosphere change on water, energy, food security, and the environment in the downstream glaciated river basins? Our primary focus areas were the Andes, Alps, Tien Shan, and Himalaya mountain ranges, we used examples from other mountain regions, such as the Rocky Mountains
The keywords used in search string terms included combinations of “cryosphere change”, “social impacts,” “economic impacts,” “glacier melting,” “snowfall,” “permafrost,” “streamflow,” “river runoff,” “water availability,” “irrigation water,” “agriculture,” “hydropower,” “tourism,” “livestock,” “fisheries,” “livelihood,” “human security,” “disasters,” “Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs),” “ecosystem,” and “environment.” We selected documents based on the following criteria: (1) the documents recorded or referred to the observed and projected impacts of cryosphere change; (2) the documents cover any of the mountain ranges of Andes, Alps, Tien Shan, Himalaya, and other high mountain regions; (3) the documents were published in the English language

Summary

Introduction

Mountains provide multiple ecosystem services vital for human well-being (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; Messerli et al, 2007). Many of these services are related to the cryosphere— glaciers, ice sheets, snow cover, river and lake ice, permafrost, and seasonally frozen ground (Huggel et al, 2015). The cryosphere regulates the climatic conditions of the Earth system, while seasonal melting of mountain snow and ice supplies freshwater for more than half of the world’s population (Qin and Ding, 2010; Xiao et al, 2015; Milner et al, 2017). Glaciers, permafrost, and other ice masses in mountain areas are thinning or declining in response to global warming and the associated changes in air temperature and precipitation. Glaciers in the Tien Shan mountains in China have lost 6–18% of their area between 1961 and 2012 (Farinotti et al, 2015), especially in the Northern regions where loss of area ranges from 0.36 to 0.76% annually (Sorg et al, 2014)

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