The BeyondIceFutures project has been awarded MRI Synthesis Funding to bring together interdisciplinary scientific, stakeholder, and practitioner expertise on recently deglaciated landscapes. The project aims to identify key knowledge gaps, assess current and potential nature’s contributions to people, and develop attractive visions and guidelines for positive futures beyond ice.

As glacier retreat becomes unavoidable in nearly all mountain ranges worldwide, inter- and transdisciplinary plans to achieve ‘positive futures’ for recently deglaciated landscapes are needed. Following up on a proglacial landscapes session at EGU25, an interdisciplinary group – comprised of of Jana Eichel (Utrecht University), Anaïs Zimmer (French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, IRD), Arnaud Temme (University of Innsbruck), and Michele Freppaz (University of Turin) – have come together to address this knowledge and management gap.

The BeyondIceFutures project, funded as a synthesis activity by the Mountain Research Initiative, integrates multidisciplinary scientific, stakeholder, and practitioner perspectives to identify key knowledge gaps, as well as current and potential nature’s contributions to people (NCPs) in recently deglaciated landscapes, and to formulate attractive visions and guidelines to achieve positive ‘beyond ice’ futures. 

Starting in Febuary 2026, the BeyondIceFutures project will carry out a global survey among scientists working in recently deglaciated landscapes – inviting responses across biology, climatology, ecology, environmental science, geomorphology, glaciology, hydrology, political ecology, soil science, and more – to identify key knowledge gaps and NCPs from a scientific perspective. This survey will be followed by a workshop that will take place 1-3 October 2026 at Innsbruck University Center in the Austrian Alps. Survey and workshop outcomes will be synthesized in a peer-reviewed paper, and in a brochure for stakeholders, practitioners, and policymakers. The project will invite at least 10 scientists who participated in the survey to also join for the workshop.

The BeyondIceFutures project looks forward to many of you contributing to the survey! Details on how to participate will be shared in the MRI newsletter at the beginning of 2026.

^{Pictured: The Lys glacier, located on the southern side of the Monte Rosa massif in the Alps. The photo on the left was captured in 1920 (image credit: Archivio Monterin) and the photo on the right in 2020 (image credit: Arnold Welf), illustrating the significant change in the landscape over 100 years.}