Reservoir Governance in World's Water Towers Needs to Anticipate Multi‐purpose Use

Kellner, Elke; Brunner, Manuela Irene

doi:10.1029/2020ef001643

Cited by 16 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 100 publications

(158 reference statements)

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“…On the 104 other hand, there are few investigations on the services provided by glacier lakes (e.g. NELAK Project 105 "New lakes in de-glaciating high-mountain areas: climate-related development and challenges for 106 sustainable use" (Haeberli et al 2013), with a particular focus on lake management considering future 107 water shortages (Brunner et al 2019; Drenkhan et al 2019; Kellner and Brunner 2021). 108…”

Section: Author Commentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-environmental value of glacier lakes: assessment in the Aosta Valley (Western Italian Alps)

et al. 2022

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Progressive glacier retreat can deeply impact high-mountain areas. New glacier lakes are forming and potential connected opportunities (e.g. geosystem services) and risks (e.g. floods) are emerging. In the last decades, glacier lakes in the European Alps have increased in number and size, including in the study area (Aosta Valley Region, NW Alps, Italy). This work presents a methodology for a regional scale assessment of the potential of glacier lakes for socio-environmental development of mountain territories. Within the Aosta Valley, 337 glacier lakes were identified covering a total area of about 1.55 km 2 . These lakes were numerically evaluated and ranked through a semiautomatic analysis in a GIS environment that was based on a set of parameters related to: 1) the geo-environmental value; 2) the existence of human infrastructures and/or activities close to the lakes; 3) the potential interaction of natural instabilities within the areas surrounding the lakes. Results showed the robustness of the assessment considering some of the highest scored lakes (e.g. Lago del Miage, lakes at the Rutor Glacier, etc.) and mountain sectors (Mont Blanc and Matterhorn areas). The application of the proposed methodology represents an initial step towards the identification of hot-spot lakes for a sustainable and integrated management, that also takes into account potential risk conditions connected to natural instabilities.

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Section: Author Commentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-environmental value of glacier lakes: assessment in the Aosta Valley (Western Italian Alps)

et al. 2022

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“…The development of renewable resources can redirect energy consumption toward sustainable local development pathways that involve not only energy production, but also energy security, savings (eg through increased efficiency), and storage. Yet, the extent to which this can be done is unclear, and initiatives must consider issues such as fairness and hydro-solidarity (Kellner and Brunner 2021), landscape protection and other environmental concerns, and public preferences (Wissen Hayek et al 2019) and acceptance (Díaz et al 2017;Scherhaufer et al 2018;M€ uller et al 2020). Public preferences and acceptance change over time (eg Frolova et al 2015;Daus et al 2019) and also depend on the character of the landscapes in which new infrastructure is proposed.…”

Section: Mountain Regions In a Globalized Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%

The International Mountain Conference, Innsbruck, Austria, September 2019 (IMC2019): A Synthesis with Recommendations for Research

Price

Gurgiser

Juen

et al. 2022

Mountain Research and Development

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“…Recent debates around this topic -mostly happening in the context of artificial reservoirs rather than natural lakes (e.g. Kellner, 2019;Kellner and Brunner, 2021;Kellner, 2021) have focused on the potentials for multipurpose usage, i.e. the potential of a given lake to satisfy different needs.…”

Section: The Significance Of New Glacier Lakesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Volume, formation and sedimentation of future glacier lakes in Switzerland

Steffen

Huss

Estermann

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Abstract. Ongoing climate change and associated glacier retreat is causing rapid environmental change, including shifts in high-alpine landscapes. Glacier lakes, which can form in topographical depressions left behind by glacier retreat, are prominent features within such landscapes. Whilst model-based estimates for the number and area of future glacier lakes exist for various mountain regions across the world, the exact morphology and temporal evolution remain largely unassessed. Here, we leverage a recently released, measurement-based estimate for the subglacial topography of all glaciers in the Swiss Alps, to provide an estimate about the number, size, time of emergence, as well as sediment infill of future glacier lakes. The topographical information is based on 2,450 km measured ice thickness profiles, whilst the temporal evolution of glaciers is obtained from a glacier evolution model forced with an ensemble of climate projections. We estimate that up to 683 potential lakes with an area > 5,000 m2 and a depth > 5 m could emerge across the Swiss Alps if glaciers were to disappear completely, with the potential to hold a total water volume of up to 1.16 [1.05, 1.32] km3 (numbers and 95 % confidence interval). For a middle-of-the-road climate scenario, we estimate that about 10 % (0.12 [0.04, 0.18] km3) and 48 % (0.56 [0.26, 0.67] km3) of this volume could be realized by 2050 and 2100, respectively. In a first-order assessment, we also estimate that ca. 45 % of the newly emerging glacier lakes (260 out of 570) will be transient features, i.e. will disappear again before the end of the century owing to refilling with sediments released by glacial erosion and proglacial sediment transport.

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Reservoir Governance in World's Water Towers Needs to Anticipate Multi‐purpose Use

Cited by 16 publications

References 100 publications

Socio-environmental value of glacier lakes: assessment in the Aosta Valley (Western Italian Alps)

Socio-environmental value of glacier lakes: assessment in the Aosta Valley (Western Italian Alps)

The International Mountain Conference, Innsbruck, Austria, September 2019 (IMC2019): A Synthesis with Recommendations for Research

Volume, formation and sedimentation of future glacier lakes in Switzerland

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