Call for Proposals on Mountains as Sentinels of Change

Mountains exist in many regions of the world and are home to a significant fraction of the world population and to half of global biodiversity hotspots. Mountains make essential ecosystem services available: acting as water towers of the world, they provide freshwater to many lowland regions for domestic use, irrigation, hydropower, or industry. They provide other ecosystem services such as unique flora and fauna, critical habitat for rare and endangered species, as well as wood, snow-based recreation, and others. But mountains are very fragile environments and are among the regions that are most sensitive to climate change and to the impacts of human activities.

Based on the above considerations, this call aims at fostering research on climate, environmental and related societal change in mountain regions, considering both new measurements, recovery of existing data, and the development and use of integrated modelling strategies by adopting a strong trans- and inter-disciplinary approach.
Attention to the hydrological, ecological, societal and economic implications of the ongoing and expected environmental changes is an essential component in the proposed projects, as well as the design of adaptation measures in the face of climate and global change, regional development and sustainable development strategies for mountain regions.

The call is open now until June 1st 2015. More information about the criteria and timeline can be found at https://bfgo.org