Global Change and Mountains: Consequences, Responses and Opportunities - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 94

large populations living in their catchments in the downstream. Currently,
mountain ecosystems are changing more rapidly than at any time in
human history on the Earth. The long-term impacts of changes caused by
deleterious anthropogenic interventions, such as intensifi cation of land
use and overexploitation of natural resources are much more deleterious
for mountain communities than the affects of natural processes, such as
volcanic and seismic events, landslides and fl ooding that devastate large
parts of mountain ecosystems every year (Messerli and Hurni 2000, FAO
2002b, Pratt and Shilling 2002). Currently, mountain ecosystems and
their inhabitants are exposed to a variety of drivers of change including
globalization; economic policies; and increasing pressure on land and
mountain resources due to economic growth and changes in population
and lifestyle (ICIMOD 2010). The major drivers of global change on the
world's mountains mainly include climate change, population dynamics,
economic globalization, land-use change, urbanization (Loeffl er et al. 2011,
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005b). The Andes, covering 33% of the
area of the Andean countries, are vital for the livelihoods of the majority of
the region's population and the countries' economies. However, increasing
pressure, fuelled by growing population numbers, changes in land use,
unsustainable exploitation of resources, and climate change, could have
far-reaching negative impacts on ecosystem goods and services.
Climate Change
Global Climate Models (GCMs) have improved our understanding about
climate change and its possible impacts in mountains. The mountains across
the world, particularly the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau, have shown
consistent trends in overall warming during the past 100 years and the
temperature rise in mountains is faster than in plains (Yao et al. 2006, Du et
al. 2004). A number of studies indicated that the increase in temperature in
the Himalaya has been much higher than the global average of 0.74°C over
the last 100 years (IPCC 2007a, Du et al. 2004). The Himalaya has experienced
warming between 0.6°-0.15°C per decade during the last three decades
(Ouyang 2012). The Himalayan ranges in Nepal recorded a temperature
increase of 0.6°C per decade between 1977 and 2000. It was observed that
the temperature rise in Nepal and Tibet has been progressively higher with
elevation (ICIMOD 2007). Global climate change is expected to exacerbate
the impacts of other drivers of change on the mountains. However, the exact
impacts of climate change on mountain ecosystems, and the interlink-ages
with other drivers of global change are yet to be investigated and properly
understood (ICIMOD 2010). The mountain regions across the world have
experienced the effects of global warming which are resulting in the retreat
of glaciers, decrease in permafrost, changes in the seasonality of runoff,