Adaptation to Climate Change in Mountain Regions: Global Significance of Marginal Places - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 145

European Alps but also in the Andes and the Himalaya, is an example of an
adaptive strategy that is based on agropastoral transhumance. The seasonal
movement of people and animals in vertical space shapes much of the
regional cultural identity and has brought about its own social institutions
(Rhoades and Thompson 1975, Netting 1982).
Drastic changes of the distribution, available space and interconnection
of ecological zones that do in a variety of ways underlie various subsistence
strategies has direct implications on mountain societies meeting their
economic and cultural needs. It is important to note that once the intricate
link to either a directly inhabited or otherwise utilized vertical zone is
broken, not only the economic resource base but the entire fabric of a
culture may be threatened. In this sense the demise of mountain farming
(Bergbauerntum) serves as an example for an impact of economic
globalization from the highly developed economies of the European
Alps (e.g., Lahn-Gärtner 2007). With mountain farming being no longer
economically viable the perceived degradation from self-sustained farmers
to subsidy dependent de facto government employed landscapers leads to
a breakdown of cultural identity.
In many cases the existential threat results directly from global climate
change induced changes of the natural environment and resource base. For
example Carey et al. (2012) point out that
“societies that depend on snowmelt and glacier run off from the
Andes and Himalayas to the Rockies and Alps are some of the
most vulnerable to these fl uctuations or reductions of freshwater
supplies. In the tropical Andes in particular, future glacier
shrinkage will diminish water sources, especially during the May
September dry season, which will affect the export agriculture
economy, indigenous people's subsistence food production,
urban drinking water, industries, and hydroelectricity generation
that accounts for up to 80% of Andean energy supplies.
Retreating glaciers have also caused disastrous glacial lake
outburst fl oods (GLOFs) in mountain ranges worldwide but
particularly in Peru; as climate continues to change, the threat
of these fl oods will persist.”
Land resources in mountains are increasingly exposed to natural
hazards, i.e., mass movements due to thawing of permafrost (Stötter et al.
1996, Kääb et al. 2007), or the heat wave in 2003 (Stott et al. 2003, Schär et al.
2003) and the fl oods in 2002 and 2005 (Habersack and Moser 2003, Godina
et al. 2006). Recently Jäger et al. (2008) developed a method to compute
the fraction of attributable risk related to climate damages by a Bayesian
fi ltering approach. In case of the alpine summer heat wave this fraction
amounted to 90%. Trends in fl oods and droughts are diffi cult to assess due
to the coarseness of GCMs.