Excellence Initiative “Waterscapes in Transcultural Perspective” MC 9 Himalayan Glaciers
Endangered and Dangerous Cryoscapes of Knowledge
Himalayan glaciers and changes in their size and mass balance have recently been at the center of the global climate change debate. These dynamic and fragile ice bodies have not only become prominent topics of scientific research but have also received international media attention as both indicators and icons of climate change. One claim in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers by 2035 captured popular imagination, and became an object of public and scientific scrutiny. Despite their crucial importance to freshwater storage and supply, detailed monitoring of contemporary changes only exist for a limited number of these glaciers. Hence, the uncertainties of spatial and temporal extrapolations of local studies on a Himalayan scale remain a research challenge. Beyond their status as physical landscape features composed of ice, snow, and debris, Himalayan glaciers have increasingly become products and producers of environmental knowledge as well as contested and controversial objects of knowledge, susceptible to cultural framing as both dangerous and endangered landscapes. Against this background, the new term cryoscape is proposed as a conceptual framework. This neologism is derived from the cryosphere as an object of scientific study, glaciers as a living landscape (as opposed to wilderness), and finally from the emergence of Himalayan glaciers as a globally imagined mediascape. In the context of threatened Himalayan glaciers, it has become more important than ever to focus on the ways in which human perceptions about global environmental change, as well as possible strategies to deal with it, are shaped.
Principal Investigator / Recipient of grant: Prof. Dr. Marcus Nüsser
Project Group: Dr. Ravi Baghel, Dr. Susanne Schmidt
Duration: 2013-2015
Funding: Excellence Initiative "Waterscapes in Transcultural Perspective"
Project number: MC9
Publications
NÜSSER M & SCHMIDT S (2021): Assessing glacier changes in the Nanga Parbat region using a multitemporal photographic dataset. Data in Brief 37C, 107178. doi:10.1016/j.dib.2021.107178
NÜSSER M & SCHMIDT S (2021): Glacier changes on the Nanga Parbat 1856-2020: A multi-source retrospective analysis. Science of the Total Environment 785, 147321. doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147321
NÜSSER M, DAME J, BAGHEL R, KRAUS B, PARVEEN S & SCHMIDT S (2019): Cryosphere-fed irrigation networks in the northwestern Himalaya: Precarious livelihoods and adaptation strategies under the impact of climate change. Mountain Research and Development 39 (2). R1-R11. doi: 10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-18-00072.1
NÜSSER M (2018): Die Gletscher des Himalaya: vom "Wohnsitz des Schnees" zum soziohydrologischen Wirkungsgefüge. In: Loureda Ó (Hg.): Wasser. Studium Generale der Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. Heidelberg University Publishing, 17-42.
SCHMIDT S & NÜSSER M (2017): Changes of High Altitude Glaciers in the Trans-Himalaya of Ladakh over the Past Five Decades (1969–2016). Geosciences 2017, 7(2), 27.
NÜSSER M & SCHMIDT S (2017): Nanga Parbat Revisited: Evolution and Dynamics of Socio-Hydrological Interactions in the Northwestern Himalaya. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 107 (2): 403-415.
KONZ M, KONZ N, BRAUN L & NÜSSER M (2015): Rivers, Lakes and Glaciers (Chapter 5). In: MIEHE G, PENDRY CA & CHAUDHARY R (eds.): Nepal: An Introduction to the Natural History, Ecology and Human Environment in the Himalayas. Edinburgh: Royal Botanic Garden, 91-101.
NÜSSER M & BAGHEL R (2016): Local Knowledge and Global Concerns: Artificial Glaciers as a Focus of Environmental Knowledge and Development Interventions. In: Meusburger P, Freytag T, Suarsana L (eds) Ethnic and Cultural Dimensions of Knowledge. Springer, Dordrecht, Heidelberg: 191–209.
BAGHEL R & NÜSSER M (2015): Securing the heights: The vertical dimension of the Siachen conflict between India and Pakistan in the Eastern Karakoram. Political Geography 48: 24–36.
NÜSSER M & BAGHEL R (2014): The Emergence of the Cryoscape: Contested Narratives of Himalayan Glacier Dynamics and Climate Change. In: Schuler B (ed): Environmental and Climate Change in South and Southeast Asia. Brill, Leiden: 138–156.
SCHMIDT S & NÜSSER M (2012): Changes of High Altitude Glaciers from 1969 to 2010 in the Trans-Himalayan Kang Yatze Massif, Ladakh, Northwest India. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 44 (1): 107-121.