Glaciology curriculum
The impacts of climate change on glaciers are evident across the mountain regions of the world and are contributing to various hazards and vulnerabilities, including increased risk of glacial outburst flood and reduced water resources. Capacity building has become a prerequisite to foster extensive research on glaciers and facilitate adaptation strategies to address these issues.
The Glaciology Curriculum consists of 19 modules covering various aspects of glaciology with focus on providing understanding about glacier dynamics, glacier process and landforms, impacts of changing climate on glacier behaviour and glacier hazards. The curriculum provides a global perspective with emphasis on the Himalayan and the Alps regions. Each module comprises of the following four sections: summary, presentations, exercises and references.
The training material is an outcome of the Indo-Swiss Capacity Building Programme on Himalayan Glaciology jointly organized by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The Programme was organized under the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE) at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as part of technical and knowledge support under the Indian Himalayas Climate Adaptation Programme (IHCAP), a project of SDC. It consisted of two levels – Level 1 included classroom training and Level 2 included a field visit to a selected glacier in the Indian Himalayan Region. The trainings were conducted by both the Indian and the Swiss faculty with an aim of enhancing the scientific capacity of young Indian researchers to monitor glaciers and assess the impacts of climate change on the cryosphere in downstream regions. A total of 51 researchers from India were trained between 2013 and 2015 as part of the Programme. Following the conclusion of the Programme, the teaching material provided by the faculty members was compiled to enable access and dissemination as curriculum material.