Mountain Mirrors is the ambitious postdoctoral project of Estefania Quenta at Imperial College London, funded by the Schlumberger Foundation. In this article written for the Climate and Environment at Imperial blog, she explains how climate change is intensifying water quality issues and how her project will fill key gaps in scientific knowledge, providing tangible tools to take actions in the Andes.
Climate change is putting water quality and security at risk
Water is a fundamental need to sustain life on Earth. However, human activities have degraded water quality and are severely threatening water security. Water quality scientists have reported that about 48% of wastewater is released into the environment without treatment, which not only impacts the health of people and ecosystems, but also causes high economic costs: polluted rivers have reduced economic growth by between 1.4-2.5% in downstream regions worldwide.
Climate change is now also threatening freshwater bodies that are considered to have good water quality, such as those located in high mountain areas.
The IPCC report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate stated that air temperature has increased by about 0.3 ±0.2°C per decade in mountain regions, accelerating the retreat of snow cover in some places and causing droughts or floods in others.
These hydrological changes can modify the concentration of substances present in water. For instance, water evaporation can increase the concentration of salts, nutrients and pollutants in water to harmful levels. Additionally, rapid glacier retreat can release stored contaminants in ice or generate acidic waters with metals after the glacier retreat.
These changes in water quality represent a threat to water security and the livelihoods of billions of people living in mountain regions.
Data on how climate change is reshaping water quality due to the retreat of glaciers or other hydrological changes is scarce in mountain regions such as the Andes, making policy actions and solutions difficult to take.
In fact, a key knowledge gap in the last IPCC report was also around the analysis of water quality in relation to climate change.
Mountain Mirrors tackles the impacts of climate change on water quality in the Andes
My project aims to provide scientific evidence to support policy decision-making on water quality and to help avoid economic costs in the Andes. The project is also aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals SDG6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG15 (life on land), and SDG13 (climate action).
The Andean region is highly sensitive to climate change. On current trends, dry years are expected to increase by a factor of 4 by 2071–2100, and about 21.4 ±2.1 gigatons of ice per year have been lost in the Andes during 2000-2019. These hydrological changes are modifying water quantity, but little is still known about their effects on water quality in the region.
I plan to address these issues with the development of two related research initiatives. The first aims to understand the effect of glacier retreat on the water quality of freshwater ecosystems by measuring the concentration of trace metals and the density of algae and cyanobacteria in streams.
The second aims to understand water quality changes in the last two decades at the broad scale of the Andes because of the climate and human-related impacts. To reach conclusions, I will combine data analysis, modelling, and a systematic assessment. I expect results to develop an interactive tool online by using programming language software to assess water quality impacts on the health of ecosystems and people.
Experiences gained so far and next steps
The ideas for Mountain Mirrors came to my mind a long time ago and now it is becoming tangible thanks to my postdoc fellowship within the research team of Prof. Buytaert. As a woman scientist from a developing country, receiving this fellowship means a lot to me. I feel that I am not undertaking only a scientific project, but I also have a deep sense of responsibility to represent other young people in low-income countries who have faced career difficulties.
So far, I have conducted five field work trips during wet season in three glacier-fed catchments of the Bolivian Andes, supported by master’s students (V. Cruz and G. Lanza, from Bolivia, UMSA) and local mountain guides. Although it is not the first time that I explored these mountain areas, my new interaction with the local mountain guides was a fulfilling experience as they found our science advantageous for their ecotourism activities. Additionally, I have performed the trace metal analysis in the labs of Imperial College London using high-technological equipment with the support of the technical staff.
Establishing collaboration has been key to advance the project. I connected with international students and scientific experts of a variety of disciplines in the Andes: a PhD student (O. Atkins, Imperial College). Dr. Ely and Dr. Bhattacharjee (University of Sheffield), Dr. Soruco (IGEMA, UMSA), Dr. Tejeda (Food chemistry section, IIQ, UMSA), MSc Pinto (IE, UMSA), (Dr. Crespo-Perez, PUCE) and (Dr. Correa, University of Giessen).
Looking ahead, beyond publishing good-quality scientific publications, my main goal is to deliver tangible results useful for informing actions and solutions. As the leader of this project, I am committed to achieving these outcomes to minimize water quality degradation in the Andean region, which I believe will also contribute to the purposes of the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation.
This blog post is shared here with the kind permission of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London.
It was written by Estefania Quenta, Postdoctoral Fellow at Imperial College London and a graduate of the Mentoring and Training Programme in IPCC Processes for Early Career Mountain Researchers, coordinated by the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI), the University of Zurich, Helvetas, and ICIMOD, with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The programme, launched during the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Cycle, aimed to empower early-career mountain researchers from developing countries by building skills and fostering inclusive participation in global climate assessments.
The blog post was edited by Jamie Taylor, Digital Communications Officer at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London.
Cover image by Chris Stenger.