Environmental Sciences

The Earth’s climate is changing quickly and may produce disastrous effects on both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, with negative consequences for humanity. Why are these changes taking place? The answer lies in history and in human activities, even if specific causes are still unidentified. Environmental research aims precisely to provide explanations, using comparisons with historical data and by studying current changes, in function of both the natural climatic variations and human actions.
 
A key role is played in this context by studies which are carried out in remote areas like high altitudes or high latitudes, e.g. the Himalaya-Karakorum. The Ev-K²-CNR Committee’s activities concentrate on this mountain area because it is in fact an ideal location for environmental studies on long-distance pollution transport and for monitoring changes caused by mechanisms which, because of the monsoons, have global repercussions.

Environmental research projects include:

Global Change – over the last 300 years, interactions between man and the atmosphere have become so diffuse and pervasive as to influence the Earth’s climate on a global scale, altering its regularity.

Sustainable Mountain Development – in 1992, the need for a specific approach to sustainable development of mountain areas was officially acknowledged by Chapter 13 of Agenda 21, adopted by UNCED. Since then, governments, international organizations and agencies have begun to take environmental fragility and the effects of climatic change into consideration when dealing with development in remote, high altitude areas.

Ecosystemic approach – climate changes, especially global warming, are producing measurable effects on several ecosystems and generating worries for their conservation (loss of uniqueness, extreme climatic events or natural catastrophes). Mountain areas are especially sensitive from this point of view, because of their economic fragility, their severe climatic conditions and the morphology of the land.

Biodiversity - the loss of biodiversity is another risk connected to climate change which gave rise to the “Convention on Biological Diversity�, signed by governments around the world. Its aim is to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.

Mountains and pollution – since mountains are remote areas characterized by a low level of direct human impact, they represent a privileged location for studying climatic evolutions and the global impact of human processes, as well as for monitoring the planet’s health and long-range pollutant transport.