International workshop on glacier hazards, permafrost hazards and GLOFs in mountain areas: processes, assessment, prevention, mitigation

Cryosphere related hazards pose growing yet often cryptic threats, to human lives and infrastructure in high mountains. Related disasters can kill hundreds of people at once and cause damages on the order of tens of million Euro worldwide annually. A single 100-year disaster can cause over billions of Euro of damage and thousands of deaths.

Global change will further challenge our ability to predict such disasters. Changes in glacier and permafrost equilibrium driven by warming and changes in precipitation patterns are creating hazards in zones hitherto considered safe. At the same time human settlements and activities extend towards danger zones. As a consequence, historical knowledge has become less useful as a guide and needs to be complemented with improved process understanding.

In the perspective of rapidly vanishing glaciers and increasingly severe droughts, water resources from glacierized mountains have become of highest importance, and interests of water resource exploitation have to be carefully considered against risk issues. These challenges require integrated analysis based on the most recent technologies and interdisciplinary approaches. Political decision making, prevention and mitigation strategies, and engineering approaches must be adapted to these rapidly changing environmental conditions.