Environmental Change in Mountains and Uplands

Mountain environments are often perceived to be austere, isolated, and inhospitable. In fact, these areas are of immense value to mankind, providing direct life support to close to 10 percent of the world's population and sustaining a wide variety of species - many of which are endemic to this environment.'Environmental Change in Mountains and Uplands' provides detailed account of the fragile and marginal physical and socio-economic systems which make up the world's mountain regions. Discussing the direct and indirect impacts of human interference on environmental ecosystems, it then turns to the social and economic consequences of such environmental change - both upon the mountain environment itself and upon the populations who depend on mountain resources for their economic sustenance.This book includes a review of possible implications for adaption and mitigation strategies in a global context. Working within a broad temporal scale, it draws upon paleoenvironmental records to document past changes which have occured in the absence of major anthropogenic influences, as well as utilising modelling as a means to assessing future environmental change.

Part 1 - Mountains and uplands an introduction Mountain regions of the world Importance of mountain regions to humankind Current environmental and socio-economic information and statistics Environmental stresses: the emergence of the human factor Global environmental change: fundamental issues Part 2 - Characterization of mountain environments Climate Hydrological systems Cryosphere Soils Ecological systems and biodiversity Human environments Data for research on mountain environments Part 3 - Past environmental change in mountains and uplands Proxy data: reconstructing the past Environmental change in the distant past Mountain environments during the last major glaciation Mountain environments during the Holocene Climatic change in the 20th century Part 4 - Modelling approaches to assess environmental change The significance of modelling Spatial and temporal scales Global and regional climate models Semi-empirical methods and statistical downscaling techniques Ecosystem models Integrated assessment models (IAM) Limits and range of application of models Part 5 - Natural forcings The causal mechanisms of anthropogenic pressures on the environment Environmental pollution Land-use changes Climatic change Part 6 - Impact of environmental change on natural systems Challenges for impacts assessments Impacts on hydrology Impact on mountain cryosphere Extreme events and their impacts on geomophologic features

Professor of Geography, University of Fribourg, Switzerland.