The idea for Mountains: Sources of Water, Sources of Knowledge began with the constitution of the Association Montagne 2002, whose mission was to celebrate the International Year of Mountains in the alpine canton of Valais, Switzerland. The year 2002 was the occasion for diverse activities ranging from exchanges with Bhutan and the construction of a traditional hanging bridge, to a contest for schoolchildren and roving photography exhibits. An international scientific colloquium was also organized at the University Institute Kurt Bösch. Committee members of the Association Montagne subsequently agreed that the presentations should be gathered into a book. The topic seemed particularly approp- ate for the Martin Beniston-edited series, “Advances in Global Change Research,” which regularly publishes the results of the annual Wengen Workshops on Global Climate Change Research as well as of other conferences. This volume was a collective effort. The dedication of the Assoc- tion Montagne committee members was unflagging. The commitment to the overall project of State Councilor Jean-Jacques Rey-Bellet and of Gabrielle Nanchen, then President of the Fondation pour le développement durable des regions de montagne, was particularly noteworthy and is gratefully acknowledged here. We appreciate the support of numerous financial sponsors of the Association Montagne 2002 and its International Year of Mountains activities, who made the conference and the book possible. Martin Beniston deserves thanks for including the volume in his series.
This book addresses the major challenges in assuring globally sustainable water use. Paradoxically, water resources have been identified both as too plentiful, producing major disasters, and increasingly vulnerable to shortages. Addressing both of these aspects requires attention to physical hydrological processes as well as human activities that affect water supply and demand. Mountains regions are the sources of many great water systems and often have long traditions of effective water management and therefore provide special insights into general problems of water use, including upstream-downstream and transboundry relations as well as natural hazard management. This volume will address critical contemporary and global issues through the lens of global change processes and with a focus on mountain regions to bring state of the art science from numerous disciplines to examine important environmental and policy questions related to water resources
