Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources and Ecosystem Dynamics in Mountainous and Cold-Region Ecosystems
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Ecohydrology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 November 2025 | Viewed by 54
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Cold-region ecosystems are adapted in multiple ways to survive in conditions where water resources vary in terms of states, including liquid, snow and ice, and time scales from diurnal freeze–thaw cycles in tropical alpine regions to millennia in polar glaciers and ice-rich permafrost. Climate change is altering historic patterns with profound implications for local ecosystems, for example, the formation or drainage of thaw lakes that changes ecosystems from terrestrial to aquatic and vice versa, and loss of ice platforms for sea mammals. Other habitat changes result from physical disturbances, such as fire, thermokarst, avalanches and freshet damage. In addition to changing physical constraints on species survival and distributional changes, liquid water is an essential resource and snow offers shelter to plants from low temperatures and animals from predators. While climate change is already affecting species distributions locally, atmospheric circulation patterns and stream flow from melting snow and ice are likely to have profound impacts on ecosystems downstream through the transport of nutrients, pollutants and invasive species. Local and downstream changes in water resources are already affecting various inhabitants, including those from often sparse local Arctic populations, the millions of inhabitants surrounding the water towers of the Third Pole and those living in mountainous regions of arid lands. While far more information is needed to identify and quantify the effects of climate change on water resources in cold regions, identifying opportunities and developing solutions for harmful impacts are also in their infancy and must be addressed.
This Special Issue welcomes contributions on, but is not confined to, impacts of climate change on ecosystems and species in cold regions relating to the following aspects:
- Changing seasonal patterns of liquid water, snow and ice;
- Long-term implications of changes in glaciers and permafrost for current ecosystems and species preserved in ancient permafrost and under glaciers;
- Direct (e.g., plant productivity) and indirect (e.g., fire) effects of changing water resources on local ecosystems;
- Plant physiological responses in water use efficiency in response to higher atmospheric CO2 levels;
- Downstream effects of changing atmospheric circulation patterns and stream water;
- Effects of changing water, snow and ice conditions for inhabitants of cold regions including drinking water, preservation of food in permafrost storage, transport, irrigation and hydropower;
- Human interventions to ameliorate changes in water, snow and ice.
Prof. Dr. Terry V. Callaghan CMG
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- water resources and water use
- biodiversity
- climate changes
- cold regions
- mountainous regions
- ecosystems, ecosystem services and feedback
- human impact
- population
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