Introducing the Case Study Areas: Hydro-climatic and Governance Contexts - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 116

6.5 Summary

Both case have undergone dynamic developments in their governance regimes over
the preceding decades and as mountainous areas will face increasing challenges
from altering bio-physical parameters from a changing climate (Viviroli et al. 2011 ) .
However, these shifts in seasonality and alterations in glacier melt are likely to take
on particular significance in the Andean region where dependence on glacier and
snow melt run off is high for water availability during the dry summer months
(Pellicciotti et al. 2007 ; Souvignet et al. 2008 ). In these mountain watershed nivo-
glacial regimes climate change (as experienced through glacier melt and snow pack
changes) will correspond with changes in the seasonality of river flows. In both
areas impacts of climate change have already been observed on glacial melt eleva-
tion of the snow line with associated impacts on the timing and amount of run off
(Häberli and Beniston 1998 ; Pellicciotti et al. 2007 ) projected to increase (Christensen
et al. 2007 ) .
Global climate models show that warming and drying trends have already been
observed and can be projected to intensify for the Andean region (Christensen et al.
2007 ) while temperature increases in the Alps have exceeded 1-1.5 °C since 1900
(about three times the global-average temperature rise), with corresponding impli-
cations for increased glacial melt and changes in snow pack (OcCC 2008 ; Solomon
et al. 2007 ). Furthermore, in combination with the strong ENSO event currently
occurring, the central-northern regions of Chile have been experiencing one of the
worst drought periods in memory (DGA 2010 ) .
The convergence of climate change impacts with the complex political and eco-
nomic issues poses significant challenges across the two case areas that will need to
be navigated through effective water governance frameworks. Table 6.3 provides an
overview of the impacts on different goods and services (Mauch et al. 2000 ) for the
different extreme events in mountain zones of interest to this study. Winter warm
spells (strong positive temperature exceedances in winter) were included in this
table, as events lead to high temperature anomalies and are associated with lower
than average winter precipitation (Beniston 2005b ) .