Assessing Impacts of Climate Change on the Provisioning Ecosystem Services of Mountain Glaciers
Assigned Session: FS 3.238: Transdisciplinary collaborations, methodologies, and ethical considerations in international mountain research
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
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.
N/A | ||||||||
|