can water from a small stream on a mountain affect an estuary hundreds of kilometers away? Please explain. This has been confusing me a lot-
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Answer:
Mountains and freshwater supply
H. Liniger and R. Weingartner1
Hanspeter Liniger and Rolf Weingartner are with the Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Switzerland.
Making the link between mountains, forests and water.
1 With contributions from Bruno Messerli (Institute of Geography, University of Bern), Christian Küchli (Independent forestry consultant), Andri Bisaz (Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation), Ueli Lutz (Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation) and Martin Grosjean (Institute of Geography, University of Bern).
MOUNTAINS - A GLOBAL PRIORITY
Water is life! It is essential for all aspects of our livelihood, from basic drinking-water to food production and health, from energy production to industrial development, from sustainable management of natural resources to conservation of the environment. Water also has religious and cultural values. Unfortunately, water is becoming scarce in many areas and regions of the planet. The latest data from the World Water Council's Report on sustaining water (1996) show clearly how alarming the situation is: "In 1950, only 12 countries with 20 million people - faced water shortages; by 1990 it was 26 countries with 300 million people; by 2050 it is projected to be as many as 65 countries with 7 billion people, or about 60 percent of the world's population, mainly in the developing countries". The report calls for immediate and effective action in order to maintain freshwater availability in the coming century. As documented in the recently published report on freshwater management (Liniger et al., 1998), mountains play a crucial role in the supply of freshwater to humankind, in both mountains and lowlands.
Since the 1970s, mountain ecosystems have received increasing recognition in several research programmes. In 1992, at the United Nations Conference in Environment and Development (UNCED - Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, Chapter 13, entitled Managing fragile ecosystems - sustainable mountain development, was included in Agenda 21, the main document of the meeting. The UN Commission on Sustainable Development subsequently appointed FAO as Task Manager for this mountain chapter. Through an unprecedented level of collaboration among UN agencies, national governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and research institutions, a comprehensive report, Mountains of the world: a global priority (Messerli and Ives, 1997), and a companion policy document, Mountains of the world: challenges for the twenty-first century (Bisaz et al., 1997) were presented to the special session of the UN General Assembly, Rio+5, in 1997.
Answer:
hope it helps you
Explanation:
Mark has Brainleast
