The Impact of Disappearing Tropical Andean Glaciers on Pastoral Agriculture

Dan Slayback, NASA GSFC / SSAI, dan.slayback@nasa.gov (Presenter)
Karina Yager, NASA GSFC, karina.a.yager@nasa.gov (Presenter)
Karen Mohr, NASA GSFC, karen.mohr-1@nasa.gov
Compton Tucker, NASA GSFC, compton.j.tucker@nasa.gov
Bryan Mark, Ohio State University, mark.9@osu.edu
Anton Seimon, Wildlife Conservation Society, aseimon@wcs.org

Ninety percent of the Earth’s tropical glaciers are located in Peru and Bolivia, and are a keystone element of regional pastoral agricultural systems that support large Andean populations. The glacier meltwaters sustain associated alpine peatbogs, which in turn provide critical year-round islands of nutritious forage for an extensive highland pastoral agricultural system that has endured in the Andes for several millennia.

Peatbogs are intricately linked with the mountain hydrological system and changes in glacier run-off directly affect the sustainability of these integral systems. However, as rapid climate change continues and tropical Andean glaciers recede, the consequences for peatbogs, and the pastoral agriculture they support, are not well understood. Our proposed research will identify the impacts of climate change trends by first quantifying recent glacier and peatbog landcover change, and then analyzing these changes in concert with data on climate, hydrology, and pastoral production to determine drivers of landscape change and impacts on land use.

Our proposed research will map glacier and peatbog extent over the past 30 years in the tropical Andes using satellite imagery, and couple these landcover maps with surface measurements to model the regional to meso-scale climate and hydrological drivers of peatbog change and to predict the future impact of these changes on pastoral agriculture. The monitoring of Andean glaciers and hydrological systems have been recognized as important research topics for the Andes, where global warming is already causing a significant impact at higher elevations. Several million households depend on the mountain alpine resources supplied by glaciers and peatbogs; thus identifying current change trends and the expected outcomes and impacts on Andean populations is an important topic.

This poster will summarize the goals, methods, and expected outcomes of our recently funded project in the ROSES-2009 LCLUC program.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Global Change Impact & Vulnerability   (Tue 11:30 AM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Slayback, Dan: The impact of disappearing tropical Andean glaciers on pastoral agriculture ...details

Poster Location ID: 286