Peruvian Glacier Recession and Livelihoods

Overview

Tropical Andean glaciers occupy an important nexus between physical and human dimensions of global climate change because they are both sensitive indicators of climate changes and critical hydrologic reservoirs. These glaciers exist in remote highland regions in predominantly poor, developing nations, and sustained negative mass balance over recent decades has accompanied dramatic landscape changes. Our research features the use of mixed methods within the Cordillera Blanca, Peru including semi-structured interviews to evaluate the relationship between environmental changes, human vulnerability-resilience and human adaptive strategies occurring in the region. Specific research objectives include: assessing human vulnerability-resilience to increasing hydrological variability due to glacier-recession; and evaluating how changing household access to resources is contributing to livelihood adaptation and change.