International Mountain Day, coinciding with the close of the COP21 climate conference in Paris, saw the launch of an atlas mapping out the impact of climate change on Asia’s five major river basins — Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus, Mekong and Salween.
Consisting of maps, visualised data, photographs and written text and stories on past, current and future projections of the impact of climate change in the region, the ‘Himalayan Climate and Water Atlas’ foresees temperatures rising across the mountainous Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region will increase by about 1–2 degrees Celsius (in some places by up to 4–5 degrees) by 2050.
The atlas will “help develop solutions and take necessary action for the region,” says David Molden, director-general of the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), one of three organisations involved in producing it.
Knowledge in Civil Society 