Mountain Research and Development 

About: Mountain Research and Development is an academic journal published by International Mountain Society. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Population & Land use. It has an ISSN identifier of 0276-4741. It is also open access. Over the lifetime, 2111 publications have been published receiving 53103 citations.

The Karakoram Anomaly? Glacier Expansion and the `Elevation Effect,' Karakoram Himalaya

Abstract: In the late 1990s widespread evidence of glacier expansion was found in the central Karakoram, in contrast to a worldwide decline of mountain glaciers. The expansions were almost exclusively in glacier basins from the highest parts of the range and developed quickly after decades of decline. Exceptional numbers of glacier surges were also reported. Unfortunately, there has been no on-going measurement of climatic or glaciological variables at these elevations. The present article examines possible explanations for this seemingly anomalous behavior, using evidence from short-term monitoring programs, low-altitude weather stations, and the distinctive environmental characteristics of the region. The latter involve interactions between regional air mass climatology, its seasonality, topoclimate or ‘verticality’ effects on glaciers with extreme altitudinal range, climatic sensitivities of heavy versus thin supraglacial debris, and complex temperature distributions in ice masses with ice falls through...

Fire and mud: eruptions and lahars of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines

Abstract: Fire and Mud is a comprehensive document of the awakening of a volcano after a 500-year sleep. Its 62 technical papers tell the scientific and human story of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo and the events surrounding it.Second in size this century only to an eruption in Katmai, Alaska, in 1912, and ten times larger than the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, Pinatubo's eruption threatened the lives of a million people. A giant ash cloud rose 35 kilometers into the sky and hot blasts seared the countryside, a more serious disaster was averted by timely, accurate warnings. Philippine authorities were able to evacuate 60,000 people from the slopes and valleys, and the American military evacuated 18,000 personnel and their dependents from Clark Air Base below the mountain -- thus saving many thousands of lives and an estimated billion dollars in property and making this the most successful case of volcanic hazards mitigation in history.In this impressive volume, volcanologists and other experts from 10 countries explore the precursors, processes, and products of the eruption, as well as record-setting erosion and lahars (volcanic mudflows) that followed. Nearly half of what the eruption deposited on Pinatubo's slopes has now been eroded and dumped, in repeated rounds of terror, on villages at the foot or the volcano. The eruption also injected so much sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere that the global climate was cooled for about two years.Volcanologists and civil defense officials will consult this book for years to come as they seek to understand large eruptions and to protect communities at risk from long-dormant volcanoes. Scholars and students will find here aninterdisciplinary view of a fascinating, incredibly dynamic geologic system. Others with a modest technical background and interest in volcanoes will find many individual essays of interest.

Degradation and conservation of the resources in the ethiopian highlands

Abstract: Soil degradation in the Ethiopian highlands and mountains was initiated with the introduction of agriculture several thousand years ago. Favourable conditions attracted early human settlers to this largest mountain complex in Africa and gradually all agriculturally suitable areas were occupied, including marginal land on slopes highly susceptible to soil erosion and degradation. The extent and distribution of soil degradation in the highlands as a whole is outlined and shows significantly greater damage in the northern and eastern regions which were settled first. There, the poor soil quality today results in reduced crop productivity and greater vulnerability to famine. Actual rates of soil loss are estimated according to the Universal Soil Loss Equation; the highest soil erosion rates occur in the western areas which clearly indicates that soils here are degrading more rapidly than soils in the north. The natural process of soil regeneration in the west is slow, with rates ten times lower than actual soil loss rates. However, measures introduced by the government in the last ten years are being applied by the Ethiopian associations of peasants. A more secure future requires that increases in production will exceed population increases and further, that soil depletion can be drastically reduced in order to sustain production in the long term.