Assessing Impacts of Climate Change on the Provisioning Ecosystem Services of Mountain Glaciers

Abstract ID: 3.13161 | Accepted as Talk | Requested as: Talk | TBA | TBA

Zeeshan Virk (1)

(1) University of Oulu, Pentti Kaiteran katu 1, 90570 Oulu, FI

Categories: Ecosystems
Keywords: Hydropower, Agriculture, Irrigation, Melt Water, Climate Change

Categories: Ecosystems
Keywords: Hydropower, Agriculture, Irrigation, Melt Water, Climate Change

Abstract

Glaciers play a crucial role in provisioning ecosystem services for many mountain communities worldwide. Fundamental systems of water, food, and energy in these communities heavily depend on glacier meltwater, which serves as a source of domestic water supply, irrigation for agriculture—often the primary livelihood activity—and high-head reservoirs for hydroelectric energy production. Climate change is accelerating glacier melt globally, but its impacts on associated ecosystem services vary across regions. This variation arises because climate change manifests differently in different regions, and mountain communities derive distinct services from glaciers. To understand the effects of climate change on glaciers and their associated ecosystem services, we examine climate forcings, resulting hydrological changes, and their impacts on dependent systems such as hydropower and agriculture in two case study areas: the Otta River basin in the Caledonian Mountains of Central Norway and the Hunza-Nagar River basin in the Karakoram Mountains of Northern Pakistan. In the Otta basin, we assess how increasing glacial meltwater influences annual energy production using glacier mass-balance modeling in the Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM) coupled with distributed hydrological modeling in the C-WATM model. In the Hunza-Nagar basin, we evaluate the impact of climate change on glacier-fed irrigation systems and associated agriculture through participatory rapid rural appraisal (PRRA), remote sensing-based indicators, and crop modeling of key crops using FAO’s AquaCrop model. Our research underscores the significance of mountain glaciers for mountain communities and provides nuanced insights into their provisioning services for these two glacierized mountainous regions of the world.

Choose the session you want to submit an abstract. Please be assured that similar sessions will either be scheduled consecutively or merged once the abstract submission phase is completed.

Select your preferred presentation mode
Please visit the session format page to get a detailed view on the presentation timings
The final decision on oral/poster is made by the (Co-)Conveners and will be communicated via your My#IMC dashboard

Please add here your abstract meeting the following requirements:
NO REFERNCES/KEYWORDS/ACKNOWEDGEMENTS IN AN ABSTRACT!
Limits: min 100 words, max 350 words or 2500 characters incl. tabs
Criteria: use only UTF-8 HTML character set, no equations/special characters/coding
Copy/Paste from an external editor is possible but check/reformat your text before submitting (e.g. bullet points, returns, aso)

Add here affiliations (max. 30) for you and your co-author(s). Use the row number to assign the affiliation to you and your co-author(s).
When you hover over the row number you are able to change the order of the affiliation list.

1
1

Add here co-author(s) (max. 30) to your abstract. Please assign the affiliation(s) of each co-author in the "Assigned Aff. No" by using the corresponding numbers from the "Affiliation List" (e.g.: 1,2,...)
When you hover over the row number you are able to change the order of the co-author list.

1
1
2
3
4
5
1
Close