Changing Glaciers and Hydrology in Asia - Environmental Health at ...

Another major information gap in the field is the lack of any “on the ground” data andinformation on the people and environments of the Himalayan region directly related to glaciers.According to TMI, almost all data that exist about glaciers has been collected through remotesensing technology, with many influential statements and correlations based on data-deficientmodeling results. There has been very little “ground-truthing” of this data or the statementsmade. For example, TMI recently launched a field expedition to the Everest region to assess thecondition of 9 glacier lakes previously classified as “dangerous” by remote sensing technology.The expedition revealed that 7 of the lakes that were deemed “dangerous” were judged not tobe, but one that had not been so classified was judged to be “very dangerous” and that a secondlake, recently re-classified as “non-dangerous,” was growing so rapidly that intensive monitoringand mitigation planning were called for. TMI has suggested that only by systematically combiningfield and laboratory-based investigations, including the insights of local people, can the tools beacquired to enable the identification of real threats, non-threats, and feasible adaptationstrategies for vulnerable communities.The paucity of adequate and reliable data on glacier melt is partially due to political dynamics. Todate, most data has been collected on an ad-hoc basis with little coordination by a fragmentedcommunity of organizations. Many respondents noted that coordination should be a nationalresponsibility, although regional coordination and cooperation are also needed. For example,ICIMOD noted that one important need is long-term longitudinal and latitudinal transect datathat would allow conclusions to be drawn for sub-regions, water basins, or specific systems.However, this requires long-term commitment from governments in the region, and thisrequirement can be problematic, especially given that glacier research sub-regions rarelycorrelate with political boundaries. This was well illustrated by a Science article in November2009 which stated that because of lingering tensions, a diplomatic initiative to get Chinese andIndian scientists working together on glaciers had been shelved in August over territorialdisputes (Bagla 2009).However, TMI, ICIMOD, the US National Science Foundation, and others are planning a secondinterdisciplinary workshop in Nepal focused on enhancing networks among scientists and policymakers. Participants will include representatives of the 8-country Himalayan-Hindu Kush region,North America, South America, and Europe, building upon the success of the 2009 workshop inPeru entitled “Adapting to a World without Glaciers.” 9Another gap related to community-based adaptation activities in the Himalaya is the need toensure upstream-downstream linkages between communities and any adaptation interventions,currently an area that is under-researched. This is generally more of a problem in mountainregions. TMI has been considering this issue and piloting an approach in the Andes using fieldbasedresearch of highland-lowland interactions and ecosystem services; new climate change andhighland-lowland curriculum development (middle to high school level); awareness raisingactivities; and lowland constituency building for enhanced mountain ecosystem service9 http://www.mountain.org/press/events/glaciers/agenda.pdf46