Suchergebnisse

Integrated adaptation strategies are needed to achieve the highly interlinked Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for water, food- and energy security in the Indus basin. However, detailed quantitative scenarios for the plausible dimensions of future resource security requirements under socio-economic development are lacking. Here we define three quantitative and spatially downscaled scenarios for future water, food and energy requirements in the Indus basin and we assess the implications of socio-economic development for the integrated resource security challenge. High-resolution gridded scenarios for resource security requirements are developed by combining three regionalised and spatialised Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) with quantitative regional water, food and energy security thresholds. The results demonstrate that by 2080 basin level water- and energy security requirements are likely to at least double and potentially triple compared to the current situation. Food requirements could increase only marginally and double at most. Migration and urbanisation additionally drive the growing requirements to spatially converge around the largest cities of the basin. This demonstrates that socio-economic development increases the complexity of the water-food-energy security challenge by increasing its magnitude and spatial concentration. Future research and policymaking should anticipate for this heterogeneous growth of resource security challenges when developing adaptation strategies.

Integrated adaptation strategies are needed to achieve the highly interlinked Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for water, food- and energy security in the Indus basin. However, detailed quantitative scenarios for the plausible dimensions of future resource security requirements under socio-economic development are lacking. Here we define three quantitative and spatially downscaled scenarios for future water, food and energy requirements in the Indus basin and we assess the implications of socio-economic development for the integrated resource security challenge. High-resolution gridded scenarios for resource security requirements are developed by combining three regionalised and spatialised Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) with quantitative regional water, food and energy security thresholds. The results demonstrate that by 2080 basin level water- and energy security requirements are likely to at least double and potentially triple compared to the current situation. Food requirements could increase only marginally and double at most. Migration and urbanisation additionally drive the growing requirements to spatially converge around the largest cities of the basin. This demonstrates that socio-economic development increases the complexity of the water-food-energy security challenge by increasing its magnitude and spatial concentration. Future research and policymaking should anticipate for this heterogeneous growth of resource security challenges when developing adaptation strategies.

Abstract. Coseismic avalanches and rockfalls, as well as their simultaneous air blast and muddy flow, which were induced by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal, destroyed the village of Langtang. In order to reveal volume and structure of the deposit covering the village, as well as sequence of the multiple events, we conducted an intensive in situ observation in October 2015. Multitemporal digital elevation models created from photographs taken by helicopter and unmanned aerial vehicles reveal that the deposit volumes of the primary and succeeding events were 6.81 ± 1.54  ×  106 and 0.84 ± 0.92  ×  106 m3, respectively. Visual investigations of the deposit and witness statements of villagers suggest that the primary event was an avalanche composed mostly of snow, while the collapsed glacier ice could not be dominant source for the total mass. Succeeding events were multiple rockfalls which may have been triggered by aftershocks. From the initial deposit volume and the area of the upper catchment, we estimate an average snow depth of 1.82 ± 0.46 m in the source area. This is consistent with anomalously large snow depths (1.28–1.52 m) observed at a neighboring glacier (4800–5100 m a.s.l.), which accumulated over the course of four major snowfall events between October 2014 and the earthquake on 25 April 2015. Considering long-term observational data, probability density functions, and elevation gradients of precipitation, we conclude that this anomalous winter snow was an extreme event with a return interval of at least 100 years. The anomalous winter snowfall may have amplified the disastrous effects induced by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal.

Abstract. Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are among the most
concerning consequences of retreating glaciers in mountain ranges worldwide.
GLOFs have attracted significant attention amongst scientists and
practitioners in the past 2 decades, with particular interest in the
physical drivers and mechanisms of GLOF hazard and in socioeconomic and other
human-related developments that affect vulnerabilities to GLOF events. This
increased research focus on GLOFs is reflected in the gradually increasing
number of papers published annually. This study offers an overview of recent
GLOF research by analysing 594 peer-reviewed GLOF studies published between
2017 and 2021 (Web of Science and Scopus databases), reviewing the content and
geographical focus as well as other characteristics of GLOF studies. This
review is complemented with perspectives from the first GLOF conference (7–9
July 2021, online) where a global GLOF research community of major
mountain regions gathered to discuss the current state of the art of
integrated GLOF research. Therefore, representatives from 17 countries
identified and elaborated trends and challenges and proposed possible ways
forward to navigate future GLOF research, in four thematic areas: (i) understanding GLOFs – timing and processes; (ii) modelling GLOFs and GLOF
process chains; (iii) GLOF risk management, prevention and warning; and (iv) human dimensions of GLOFs and GLOF attribution to climate change.