High Mountain Asia hydropower systems threatened by climate-driven landscape instability

Li, Dongfeng; Lu, Xixi; Walling, Desmond E.; Zhang, Ting; Steiner, Jakob; Wasson, Robert J.; Harrison, Stephan; Nepal, Santosh; Nie, Yong; Immerzeel, Walter W.; Shugar, Dan H.; Koppes, Michèle; Lane, Stuart N.; Zeng, Zhenzhong; Sun, Xiaofei; Yegorov, Alexandr; Bolch, Tobias

doi:10.1038/s41561-022-00953-y

Cited by 124 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 122 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Iceland and Peru; Matti et al, 2022a) as well as rapid and often unregulated development in GLOF-prone areas (e.g. in India, Nepal and Peru; Schwanghart et al, 2016;Huggel et al, 2020a;Carey et al, 2021;Li et al, 2022) Identified challenges -Identification of overlooked or underestimated GLOF risk drivers and their consideration in GLOF risk management -Research often does not lead to tangible actions, partly because research projects often bypass decision-making stakeholders; scientific studies are often not well-connected to the applied works of practitioners -Ever-growing number of lake hazard/risk assessment schemes, with different scopes (susceptibility, hazard, risk assessment) and approaches; for decision-makers, differing results and contradicting information on "potentially dangerous lakes" are difficult to interpret -Design and implementation of GLOF risk reduction measures and their acceptance by hazard exposed communities (see also Sect. 4.5)…”

Section: Participation Management and Governance Of Glofsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the same time increasing urbanization, land and water demand, migration, mountain tourism, and other socioeconomic and human-related forces exacerbate human exposure and raise vulnerabilities to GLOFs, especially in low-income countries such as Peru or Nepal (Carey, 2010;Sherry et al, 2018;Motschmann et al, 2020a;Sherpa et al, 2020;Carey et al, 2021). However, possible synergies and trade-offs between climate change adaptation (Moulton et al, 2021;Aggarwal et al, 2021), sustainable water use and management (Drenkhan et al, 2019;Haeberli and Drenkhan, 2022), hydropower generation (Schwanghart et al, 2016;Li et al, 2022), glacier protection (Anacona et al, 2018), and GLOF hazard mitigation are still under discussion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Progress and challenges in glacial lake outburst flood research (2017–2021): a research community perspective

Emmer

Allen

Carey

et al. 2022

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Section: Participation Management and Governance Of Glofsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Progress and challenges in glacial lake outburst flood research (2017–2021): a research community perspective

Emmer

Allen

Carey

et al. 2022

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Dryland warming, wildfires, lower water tables, and a decrease in already sparse plant cover together result in more airborne dust and actively migrating sand dunes in some arid and semi‐arid regions (Huang et al., 2016; Lancaster, 1997). These hydrologic and landscape impacts will affect ecosystems, often adversely, as well as human life, health, property, and infrastructure (Figure 2; e.g., Achakulwisut et al., 2019; CNN, 2022; East & Sankey, 2020; Hamlington et al., 2020; Irrgang et al., 2022; Jong‐Levinger et al., 2022; Lentz et al., 2016; Li et al., 2022; Mathieson et al., 2020).…”

Section: How Does Contemporary Climate Change Affect Physical Landsca...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring and Attributing Sedimentary and Geomorphic Responses to Modern Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities

East

Warrick

et al. 2022

Earth's Future

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Earth-surface-process studies span a vast range of physical landscape settings across deserts, mountains, rivers, coasts, and the cryosphere (Figure 1), and today anthropogenically induced climate change is affecting virtually all of these. Future warming will increasingly impact the geomorphic and sedimentary evolution of essentially all terrestrial and nearshore settings. Anthropogenic influence on Earth's climate has been distinctly evident for only a little over 50 years, since the anomalous global warming signal clearly diverged from natural climate variability around 1970; human influence now dominates strongly over natural solar and volcanic climate effects (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2014(IPCC, , 2021. Tying physical landscape responses to climate change over any time scale is notoriously difficult due to intrinsic and often highly dynamic natural variability of landscapes, multiple modes of climate variability, and human modification of Earth's surface. Can we identify geomorphic effects of recent, ongoing warming over the last five decades? How will future climate change continue to alter landscape processes? These questions must be answered for societies to prepare appropriately for future, climate-driven hazards to human health and safety, risks to the built environment, security of water-foodenergy systems, consequences to economies, and the preservation of ecosystems and other natural resources. Some landscape responses follow directly from global warming-for example, permafrost thaw, glacier retreat, or thermal rock stresses that result from increasing temperatures (Figure 2)-whereas other landscape responses are secondary, such as shifting coastal position due to sea-level rise and/or sediment-supply changes, or responses to a changing hydrologic cycle. These responses, in turn, alter the movement of geologic and geochemical materials Abstract Today, climate change is affecting virtually all terrestrial and nearshore settings. This commentary discusses the challenges of measuring climate-driven physical landscape responses to modern global warming: short and incomplete data records, land use and seismicity masking climatic effects, biases in data availability and resolution, and signal attenuation in sedimentary systems. We identify opportunities to learn from historical and paleo data, select especially sensitive study sites, and report null results to better characterize the extent and nuances of climate-change effects. We then discuss efforts to improve attribution practices, which will lead to better predictive capabilities. We encourage the Earth-science community to prioritize scientific research on climate-driven physical landscape changes so that societies will be better prepared to manage the effects on health and safety, infrastructure, water-food-energy security, economics, and ecosystems that follow from climate-driven physical landscape change.Plain Language Summary Modern global warming will ultimately affect physical landscape processes virtually everywhere on...

show abstract

“…His prediction is becoming true for river systems worldwide, with 𝐴𝐴 𝐴 45,000 large dams (height 𝐴𝐴 𝐴 15 m) distributed over 140 countries (Ma et al, 2022;Syvitski et al, 2022). Dams are often designed to generate hydropower and mitigate floods (Li et al, 2022;Ma et al, 2022), but they also disrupt river continuity and induce drastic temporal and spatial alterations in river flow and sediment regimes (…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms Controlling Water‐Level Variations in the Middle Yangtze River Following the Operation of the Three Gorges Dam

Yong

Deng

et al. 2022

Water Resources Research

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Half a century ago, Leopold (1956) predicted that dams would someday become so numerous on American rivers that they would be the primary factor controlling the characteristics of river channels. His prediction is becoming true for river systems worldwide, with 𝐴𝐴 𝐴 45,000 large dams (height 𝐴𝐴 𝐴 15 m) distributed over 140 countries (Ma et al., 2022;Syvitski et al., 2022). Dams are often designed to generate hydropower and mitigate floods (Li et al., 2022;Ma et al., 2022), but they also disrupt river continuity and induce drastic temporal and spatial alterations in river flow and sediment regimes (

show abstract

High Mountain Asia hydropower systems threatened by climate-driven landscape instability

Cited by 124 publications

References 122 publications

Progress and challenges in glacial lake outburst flood research (2017–2021): a research community perspective

Progress and challenges in glacial lake outburst flood research (2017–2021): a research community perspective

Measuring and Attributing Sedimentary and Geomorphic Responses to Modern Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities

Mechanisms Controlling Water‐Level Variations in the Middle Yangtze River Following the Operation of the Three Gorges Dam

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About