People in the Mountains - Mountain Geography: Physical and Human Dimensions - page 505

the exceptions in both their physical extent and their stability or growth in recent dec-
ades. Regardless of their size and extent, mountain snow and ice are and have been
very important to people. However, in very large to subcontinental watersheds, the re-
lative importance of glacier ice sources may have been overstated (Kaser et al. 2010).
Nevertheless, at the local and regional scale in the Andes, parts of the Cordillera in
North America, and the dry trans-Himalayan ranges like the Karakoram (Fig. 10.11),
snow and ice melt dominate stream hydrology, especially at the driest times of year,
when they are critical water sources for human use. To date, there have been relatively
few formal studies of the roles of glacier ice in the lives of people, communities, and
cultures. Some that have been done (e.g., Staley 1982; Cruikshank 2005; Vivian 2005;
Orlove et al. 2008; Carey 2010) describe deeply embedded relationships that have tran-
scended generations. Staley describes efforts to create small glaciers in the Karakoram
when snow and ice water sources have been depleted or demand has increased (Fig.
10.11), by combining the ice of “female” and “male” glaciers. Cruikshank describes the
longstanding role of glaciers as avenues of transport and exchange among indigenous
groups in northwestern British Columbia, the Yukon, and southeast Alaska. Both de-
scribe hazards such as glacier advances and floods of various types that impinged on
land and settlements. This theme is pursued by Vivian in a detailed inventory of the gla-
ciers of Mont Blanc in the French Alps, where, in response to cooling, many glaciers ad-
vanced into settlements and agricultural land in the late seventeenth century, and later
produced outburst floods with, in some cases, even greater impact (Fig. 10.9). Carey's
detailed case study in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru reveals a complex historical rela-
tionship between glaciers; their melting; the formation of lakes; water supply for agri-
cultural, domestic, and power generation; flood, avalanche, and glacier lake outburst
hazards; and the politics of it all.