This study looks at future water deficit in glacier-fed river basins in Asia and the Andes under three possible global development pathways. The results show that a world with high population growth and low technological progress faces the greatest water stress. Scenarios with better technology or lower climate impacts reduce water deficits. Glacier meltwater increases temporarily under stronger warming but declines later in the century. Overall, the study highlights the need for climate mitigation and better water management to reduce future water scarcity.

This study assesses water scarcity in selected glacierized basins across Asia and the Andes under three Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5). Using a novel integration of the Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM), the Xanthos hydrological framework, and the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM), we estimate water availability and demand while accounting for glacier runoff and its temporal dynamics. Results reveal SSP3-7.0 as the most water-scarce scenario due to high water demand, higher population and low technological development. Instead, SSP5-8.5 results in slightly lower water scarcity risks than SSP3-7.0 due to its higher technological efficiency and lower population. Finally, SSP1-2.6 results in lower cumulative surface water deficits due to lower climate change impacts, better water and energy technology, and lower population. Glacier runoff has a peak in its contribution under severe climate scenarios (SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5) and experiences a decline in the second half of the 21st century. The findings underscore the importance of effective mitigation to avoid peak-water occurrence under high emissions scenarios and adaptation measures, such as improving irrigation efficiency and reducing withdrawals, to address anthropogenic-induced water scarcity.

Increase water scarcity and glacier runoff decline under severe climate change scenarios in Asian and Andean basins.

This study examined how glaciers contribute to streamflow and hydropower production in Norway’s Jostedøla River Basin (2000–2014). Model simulations suggest that glacier meltwater significantly supports the largest power plant (38.5%), whereas others rely on rainfall and groundwater flow. In June, snowmelt from areas without glacier cover supports streamflow during Warm and Dry days. However, in August, neither snow nor glacier meltwater can compensate for the rainfall deficit. We found that smaller power plants are more vulnerable to water intake fluctuations. Qualitative analysis reveals the differences between model results and stakeholder perceptions, potentially hindering effective climate adaptation and energy security efforts.

This study utilized a series of models to simulate the surface energy balance for meltwater production, soil water balance, and runoff routing, alongside semi-structured interviews and surveys. It examined glaciers’ contribution to streamflow and hydropower production, and stakeholder perceptions of these contributions in the Jostedøla River Basin, southwestern Norway (2000–2014). Whereas rainfall and baseflow are the most significant contributors at all studied power plants, glacier meltwater accounted for 38.5% of the intake at the largest power plant. In June, snowmelt from non-glacier-covered areas offset low rainfall, but in August, neither snow nor glacier meltwater compensated for deficits despite a high glacier meltwater contribution. Small-pondage plants are more vulnerable than reservoir plants to seasonal and annual fluctuations in intake.

Interviews and surveys with hydropower operators in the Jostedøla basin reveal agreement and disparity between perceptions and modeled results: operators recognize glacier meltwater’s contribution at power plants with significant water storage and assume no contribution at smaller run-of-the-river plants. The company reports overlooked glacier loss, framing climate change as beneficial due to higher precipitation. Reduced meltwater would diminish production, lowering municipal revenues from taxes and electricity sales and threatening funding for social services and local development.

Study reveals glaciers’ role in southwestern Norway’s hydropower production and the challenges of climate adaptation.

Glaciers are more than ice masses: they help communities make sense of their place in the world. And as glaciers retreat, the identities formed in relation to place of those who depend on them are transformed. Using the example of the Central Andes of Chile, this article argues that this transformation is a political one. In the Cajón del Maipo, next door to Chile’s capital, Santiago, local connections to glaciers are not always palpable. However, they are strengthened as people start to identify with them and see their destruction as linked to development projects and the extractive industry.

This article explores the relationship between glacier retreat and place identity through a political ecology lens, using the Cajón del Maipo in Chile as a case study. While place identity has been widely discussed in environmental psychology as a set of cognitive, affective, and behavioral elements that connect individuals to their environments, it has often been depoliticized. This paper seeks to politicize the concept by emphasizing how power, struggle, and place transformations shape identity formation. Drawing on 48 semi-structured interviews conducted in San José de Maipo and Baños Morales in October and November 2024, I examine how local identities are formed and reconfigured in response to environmental degradation caused by both climate change and extractive industries. Findings suggest that opposition to, or mere acknowledgment of, large-scale development projects, like the controversial Alto Maipo hydroelectric plant, has reinforced local attachments to place and to glaciers. The article argues that place identity is not merely emotional or symbolic, but emerges through political contestation, making glaciers key entities around which power and belonging are negotiated in the context of environmental change.

As glaciers retreat in Chile, people begin to tie their identities to a nature that is being changed before their eyes.

As glaciers shrink and disappear, the benefits they provide to people may also be fading. This makes it more important than ever to look closely at how melting glaciers affect both the environment and the communities that depend on them. To truly understand what is being lost- or even gained- we need to study glaciers from many angles. This includes looking at the science of ice and water, the plural value of nature, local politics, and possible future changes. We bring these different aspects under the framework called socio-glaciology. This method looks beyond just economic impacts and includes political ecology and plural valuations to cover knowledge about health, the ability to move or adapt, cultural traditions, local knowledge, and people’s connection to their land.

As ice retreat undermines glaciers’ contributions to people, there is a pressing need for in-depth analysis of the complex interactions between the glacier environments and the societies living in, and engaging with affected areas in the decades to come. In order to fully understand what is lost, damaged, and even gained, we advocate for a research design that combines glaciology, hydrology, ecosystems services, political ecology, and future scenarios studies. A socio-glaciology approach (SG) can uncover the nuances of non-economic losses, including, but not limited to loss of life, health, technology, human mobility, territory, cultural heritage, and local knowledge.

SG as an interdisciplinary framework proposes to study society–glacier interactions as well as values with a circular research design, by integrating local knowledge, experiences, and preferences with more instrumental tools of scientific observations and computer modeling. We argue for reflexivity, meaning that methodologies for understanding glacier change in relation to people should be grounded in local experiences and preferences, while also being relevant and useful for policy, decision-making, and the development of strategies to manage environments and societies of the cryosphere.

Most research on glaciers has focused on the physiological effects of glacial melt by quantifying the scale of change. We need to bring social science perspectives to identify what these changes actually mean for societies and ecosystem values.

In this paper, we aim to understand climate adaptation technologies by focusing on artificial ice reservoirs (AIRs) in Ladakh, India. The cryosphere-fed irrigation network of Ladakh has always been prone to water scarcity in spring. To address this, different types of AIRs, such as ice stupas, were introduced as adaptive technologies to aid during this scarce season. By using Ladakh as a case study, we argue that these technologies can configure hydrosocial relations and power across actors.

AIRs have emerged as climate adaptation technologies to cope with seasonal water scarcity in the changing cryospheric environments of Ladakh. In the era of climate change, it is important to study technologies promoted as climate adaptation solutions to uncover how they relate to the needs of communities and existing power relations. Taking AIRs in Ladakh as a case, this study uses qualitative methods, political ecology perspectives on water, and hydrosocial theory to show how hydrosocial relations are (re)configured in the development, adoption, and implementation of these technologies. Findings show that hydrosocial relations are configured between different actors through shared values, integration of new technologies with existing infrastructures, integration of different knowledges, and collective understanding of the sacredness of water and land. However, value conflicts and lack of integration into existing water governance and traditional infrastructures can lead to reluctance to accept AIRs, discontinued maintenance, fragmented implementation, and confusion between actors regarding the uses of meltwater, potentially leading to conflict. This study shows that while complex socio-natural power relations are embedded within these technologies and in their implementation, not all power relations are necessarily visible or rooted in resource conflict. Competing knowledge systems can be negotiated, tested, and modified, influencing the acceptance of climate adaptation technologies such as AIRs.

Climate adaptation technologies introduced to address cryospheric changes affect the circulation of water and societal relations in many ways.

Climate policies increasingly frame Himalayan forests as carbon sinks and sites for restoration. In Lahaul Valley, state-led programmes invoke women’s participation to demonstrate success and attract climate finance. Drawing on participatory and ethnographic community engagement, this study shows how such narratives often obscure deeper questions of land rights, labour, and decision-making. Women's collectives play a central role in caring for forests and responding to climate risks, yet their work remains unpaid, their knowledge marginalised, and their tenure rights weakly recognised. The paper argues for moving beyond technocratic green-growth approaches towards forms of climate justice rooted in democratic forest governance, local authority, and women’s collective political agency.

As climate policy increasingly recasts Himalayan landscapes as carbon sinks and conservation zones, participatory nature-based solutions have become key instruments for mobilising finance. This paper critically examines claims of participation within state-led forest governance initiatives in the trans-Himalayan tribal region of Lahaul, Himachal Pradesh. Grounded in environmental history, feminist political ecology, and climate justice, it traces how socio-ecological systems historically organised around mobility, agro-pastoralism, and reciprocal commons relations were gradually transformed through colonial forest enclosures, postcolonial development policies, and contemporary climate-oriented interventions. Drawing on participatory fieldwork with grassroots leaders, mahila mandals, archival sources, and Right to Information (RTI)-based document analysis (2021–2025), the study shows how donor-driven restoration programmes prioritise afforestation, carbon sequestration, and market-oriented livelihoods while marginalising open grassland ecologies, agroforestry systems, and claims to land, tenure, and decision-making authority. Women’s collective action emerges as central yet deeply constrained within unequal structures of labour and authority. Mahila mandals regulate forest use, patrol commons, and respond to climate-related disasters through unpaid labour, producing a decentralised environmentality that redistributes responsibility without power. The paper argues that climate justice in the trans-Himalaya requires re-centring forest governance around local authority, secure tenure, and recognition of forests as lived socio-ecological landscapes rather than sites of green accumulation.

Who bears the labour of climate action in the Himalaya? Forests, rights, and women’s agency.