In July, The Mountain Institute, in collaboration with U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. National Science Foundation, University of Georgia, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, and International Resources Group will gather international scientists, practitioners, and policy makers in Peru to examine the impacts of glacier recession caused by contemporary climate change. The effort will consider the implications of diminishing glaciers for freshwater supplies, the impacts on communities and economic sectors that depend on the water, the development of adaptive strategies, and identification of priority research and pilot project needs. A critical point of concern is to identify how scientific research results can be incorporated into decision making processes to protect vulnerable populations.
For millennia, mountain glaciers have provided fresh water critical for drinking and agriculture, and in some cases energy, to downstream populations. As vulnerable countries face the consequences of 
climate change, the loss of glaciers will be a major threat to the stability and security of billions of people. Globally, glaciers are thought to be losing 92 cubic kilometers of ice per year. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) estimates that 80 per cent of all glacial ice in the Himalayas and Tibet will be gone by 2035. Likewise, Andean glaciers are rapidly losing their ice cover and their rate of retreat has accelerated during the past decade.
In the short term, the potentially deadly combination of unstable high altitude snow, ice fields, and rapid formation of new glacier lakes, all directly linked to warming trends, creates great dangers for thousands of people living in the vicinity of the Andean glaciers. Glacial lakes are formed when melt-water from a retreating glacier fills the now empty bowl-like depression gouged out by the original glacier. Glacial lake outburst floods are caused when ice avalanches, earthquakes, and/or natural dam breaching suddenly unleash the lake water stored behind the unstable terminal moraines that contain the lake. This can lead to enormous devastation downstream, including high death tolls and the destruction of valuable forests, farms, and costly infrastructure. Similarly, already at-risk parts of Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and north India will experience increased exposure from flooding, erosion, mudslides, and glacial lake floods during the wet season. Because the melting of snow coincides with the summer monsoon season, any intensification of the monsoon and/or increase in melting is likely to contribute to flood disasters in many Himalayan catchments.
In the longer term, glacier disappearance portends serious impacts on the many billions of people who rely on them for their water supply. The earth's sub-tropical zones, home to 70 percent of the world's population, are the most vulnerable. Diminished freshwater supplies will affect not only the inter-Andean zone and Peruvian coast, but also the great semi-tropical forests of the Amazon that extend across several countries in the continent. There may not always be enough water to drink, let alone for the lowland and coastal crops that use about 70 percent of the melt-water for irrigation needs today. The IPCC estimates that these changes in the Himalaya will affect at least 500 million people on the Indian Subcontinent and 250 million in China.
Coping with this future will be the focus of discussion between experts from Latin America, the United States, Nepal, Pakistan, and Europe, culminating in recommendations and concrete plans for future collaborative research and development. This interdisciplinary collaboration brings glacier and climate change experts from physical and social sciences together with policy makers, one of the first such gatherings of its kind. The workshop will begin in Lima, Peru, where government, NGO, and private sector decision makers will spend one day discussing their understanding of climate change, goals and objectives of the workshop, and key issues or sectors for which the workshop could develop more detailed information and recommendations.
Participants then travel 8 hours by bus to Huaraz, Peru to the Valley of Callejon de Huaylas and Cordillera Blana. From Huaraz, one can see over 20 snow-capped peaks higher than 5000 m, including Huascaran at 6,768 m, the tallest of all Peru's mountains. The Cordillera Blanca, one of Peru's 27 glacial ranges, contains a third of all the world's tropical ice, 13 per cent of which was lost between 1962 and 1997.
The workshop will also provide training in vulnerability assessment methodologies to participants, who will form small, interdisciplinary groups that examine priority problems - the future of freshwater supplies, glacial lake outbursts, downstream impacts--and prepare recommendations for developing better adaptation strategies. Specific field sites will be examined to deepen understanding and provide concrete examples. On the last day of the Huaraz session, the group will review the week's work and refine their recommendations. These will be presented on July 15 to key decision makers in Lima.
TMI and its partners envision this multi-discipline effort as a unique opportunity to also open regional and international dialogue on (a) the importance of water resources management for long-range planning and climate change adaptation, sharing the experiences of multiple mountain ranges, (b) how changes could affect life in the mountains that depends on glaciers for sustenance., and (c) identifying additional priority research, collaboration, and pilot project initiatives. A follow-on workshop is planned in Asia in 2010.
Following the workshop, TMI will launch an innovative project entitled "From the Glaciers to the Coast: Building Climate Change Awareness and Resilience in the Ancash and Piura Watersheds of Northern Peru." Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and under TMI's work on "Climate Change and Highland-Lowland Interactive Systems". The project is designed to (a) strengthen Peru's climate change research and action program agenda by developing and strengthening the linkages between academics, policy makers, and communities, (b) increase the capacities of highland-lowland (upsteam-downstream) stakeholders to adopt effective adaptive climate change responses, design practical mechanisms to build resilience, and implement strategic remedial action programs, and (c) maintain ecosystem services through conservation measures that buffer watersheds against the negative impacts of climate change. Thethree-year project will be implemented in partnership with mountain communities, local NGOs, multi-lateral donors, the private sector, Peruvian and U.S. universities, and the Government of Peru. Project activities will be implemented at the local, regional, and highland-lowland levels and will promote linkages, partnerships, and actions of mutual benefit among and between highland and lowland stakeholders who normally have little interaction.
TMI has a long history of working from the ground up. Over the nearly 40 years of its existence, TMI has used its convening skills and strategic placement to bring organizations and individuals together for dialogue and problem-solving. TMI has worked for many years in mountainous regions of North and South America and in Asia, particularly in China, India, and Nepal, to strengthen the resilience of mountain people while building their capacity to manage complex challenges through better planning, communication and action. Climate change marks the newest and perhaps the most difficult of these threats, and one where the challenges faced by mountain communities also have major consequences for large populations and cities downstream.
