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From January 2021, Mountain Research Initiative Executive Director Dr. Carolina Adler will become the new MountainMedia Editor for the journal Mountain Research and Development (MRD), taking over the reins from Professor Martin Price following his decision to step down after 27 years in the role.
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The American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting 2020 took place virtually this month. Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) Science Leadership Council members Bryan Mark and Shawn Marshall and MRI Scientific Project Officer Gabrielle Vance convened three exciting sessions (one poster, two oral) around the theme of Environmental and Climate Change in Global Mountain Regions. The MRI also organized an informal side event to complement the AGU sessions.
Mountains are sensitive to global climate, hold valued archives of changes over time, and closely couple resources and risks to society. The MRI AGU sessions invited contributions examining past, present, and future environmental change and associated societal impacts in mountain regions. The co-conveners sought measurement and modelling studies of the changing climate, cryosphere, hydrology, and ecology of global mountain environments, including their couplings and implications for mountain social-ecological systems (e.g. hazards, fire, water resources, and other socio-cultural impacts).
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The overarching theme of the 34th International Geographical Congress is 'Geography: Bridging the Continents.' The Congress will explore many areas relevant to mountain research, and includes a number of mountain-specific sessions. Abstract submission is now open and closes 11 January 2021.
The 34th International Geographical Congress will take place in Istanbul, Turkey from 16-20 August 2021. The Congress aims to focus on six key topics: Globalization vs Localization; Climate Change; Migration and Conflicts; Earth and Disasters; Eurasia and Middle East Studies; and Anthropocene.
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In this interview, Professor Adrienne Grêt-Regamey, Chair of Planning Landscapes and Urban Systems at ETH Zurich and MRI Principal Investigator, discusses mountain ecosystem services under pressure and the vital role of landscape planning in securing them for the future.
As the Chair of Planning Landscape and Urban Systems (PLUS) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Professor Adrienne Grêt-Regamey leads research into how humans shape landscapes, and vice versa. In a recent study published in the journal Ecosystem Services, for example, Prof. Grêt-Regamey and her co-author Bettina Weibel conducted a global assessment of mountain ecosystem services using earth observation data. In undertaking this research, Grêt-Regamey explains, they wanted to understand how mountains, as “sensitive social-ecological systems” and “sentinels of global change,” provide insights into “the effects of land use and population change on ecosystem services across the world.”
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In an article published last month in the journal Ecosystem Services, MRI Principal Investigator Prof. Adrienne Grêt-Regamey and her co-author Bettina Weibel investigate the specific contribution of mountain areas to ecosystem services.
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Every year since 2003, the UN declared International Mountain Day (IMD) is observed on 11 December, highlighting the issues and achievements that concern mountains, worldwide. This year, we reflect on the theme of “biodiversity” and the importance of recognising the value of mountains, for instance in hosting about half of the world's biodiversity hotspots. We also recall the crucial contributions that the mountain research community can make to safeguard mountain biodiversity as a global common good.
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Research published in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences highlights the importance of liquid water percolation for modelling snowpack evolution in Mediterranean mountain regions.
In many Mediterranean mountain regions, seasonal snowpack is an essential yet poorly understood water resource. To help tackle this knowledge gap and support improved water resource evaluation and management, researchers have, for the first time, examined the spatial distribution and evolution of snow water equivalent (SWE) during three snow seasons (from 2013 to 2016) in the coastal mountains of Lebanon. The results were published in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences earlier this year.
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The 18th Swiss Geosciences Meeting (SGM) took place virtually earlier this month, offering a series of scientific symposia on the diverse spectrum of current research in geosciences, encompassing the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the biosphere, the atmosphere, and the anthroposphere. Among the sessions on offer was the cross-cutting theme for the session titled 'Mountains as Contexts of Global Change', co-convened by the MRI, the Interdisciplinary Center for Mountain Research (CIRM), and the SCNAT Forum Landscapes, Alps and Parks (FoLAP).
Mountain regions offer concrete contexts through which challenges and opportunities of global change are experienced, perceived, and enacted. Combining multiple and diverse knowledge streams across the natural and social sciences, accounting for the complexity of social-ecological interactions, are increasingly called for in mountain research. So, how are we tracking along this imperative, and what exemplars of this type of integrative research are currently being undertaken by Swiss-based and other geoscientists working in mountains, worldwide?
