Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER ONE
An Introduction to Mountains
ALTON C. BYERS, LARRY W. PRICE, and MARTIN
F. PRICE
Most people are familiar with the importance of oceans and rainforests (Byers et al.
1999), thanks in part to the dozens of topics, documentaries, programs, and Internet sites
developed by education and conservation groups over the past two decades. Yet there
is at least as strong a case for arguing that mountains are also of critical importance
to people in nearly every country of the world (Messerli and Ives 1997; Debarbieux and
Price 2008).
For example, all of the world's major rivers have their headwaters in mountains, and
more than half of humanity relies on the fresh water that accumulates in mountains for
drinking, domestic use, irrigation, hydropower, industry, and transportation (Viviroli et
al. 2007; Bandyopadhyay et al. 1997; this volume, Chapter 12).
Hydropower
from moun-
tain watersheds provides 19 percent of the world's total electricity supply, roughly equi-
valent to all the electricity generated by alternative methods such as solar, wind, geo-
thermal, and biomass (Schweizer and Preiser 1997; Mountain Agenda 2001). Mountain
forests
provide millions of people with both timber and non-timber forest products (e.g.,
mushrooms, medicinal plants) and play vital roles in downstream protection by capturing
and storing rainfall and moisture, maintaining water quality, regulating river flow, and
reducing erosion and downstream sedimentation (Price and Butt 2000; Price et al. 2011).
Because the same geologic forces that have raised mountains have also helped concen-
trate assemblages of
minerals
useful to human society, the mines in today's mountains
are the major source of the world's strategic nonferrous and precious metals (Fox 1997).
Many mountains are hotspots of
biodiversity
(Jeník 1997; Körner and Spehn 2002;
Spehn et al. 2006; this volume, Chapters 7 and 8). With increasing altitude, changes in
temperature, moisture, and soils can create a dense juxtaposition of differing ecologic-
al communities, sometimes ranging from dense tropical jungles to glacial ice within a
few kilometers: This phenomenon is well illustrated by the six bioclimatic zones of the
Makalu region of eastern Nepal that are found between 100 and 8,000 m over a mere
20 horizontal kilometers: Over 3,000 plant species are found within this range, includ-
ing 25 species of rhododendrons, 50 of primroses, 45 of orchids, and 80 of fodder trees
and shrubs (Shrestha 1989). Not only does such biodiversity have intrinsic value; it can
also have great economic and health values. For instance, of the 962 species of medicinal
plants that occur in the temperate to alpine zones of the Indian Himalaya, 175 are being
used by herbal drug companies (Purohit 2002). Many mountains (e.g., Mount Kenya and
Kilimanjaro in East Africa; Hedberg 1997) can be thought of as islands of biodiversity
