Water in Mountains
Megève, France
From: 08.10.2014 to: 10.10.2014
Local government officials, economic stakeholders, association leaders, scientists and other interested parties from the Alpine Arc countries - from France, Italy, Switzerland and all over Europe - will discuss ways to transform the constraints on water resources, due to global warming and other major global changes, into assets for mountains in the future.
During the previous three conferences held in Megève in 2002, 2006 and 2010, an alert was sounded on the need for strategies on water resources in light of climate change.
In the Alps, the average temperature has increased more than twice the overall global warming in the past century: the models are forecasting an increase in temperature ranging between 2.6 and 3.9° C by 2100. The Alpine glaciers have already lost between 20 and 30 percent of their volume since 1980, and their volume could diminish by 30-70 percent by 2050 while almost all the smaller ones will have disappeared.
Mountains make an essential contribution to the flow rate of all of Europe’s largest rivers, acting as ‘regulators’. The flow regularity of these rivers is crucial for the supply of drinking water to downstream populations, and for economic development, including that of the foothills and the plains. As climate change is impacting the mountains, with less snow cover and melting glaciers, the water regimes of all the large rivers are changing.
An opportunity to share good practices, the Megève conference will discuss the many measures that have proved effective.
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Photo: Flickr/barnyz
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