Mountain systems are very diverse and so is the pattern of natural hazards. Worldwide disaster databases show that associated human and economic losses are significant but vary greatly between and within mountain regions. Continued changes in climate, land use and socio-economic conditions are likely to lead to vastly altered mountain landscapes in the future, with associated implications for h...

Both habitat patch size and structure affect the abundance and occurrence of species and thereby can affect the ecology and evolution of species interactions. Here we contrast the level of seed predation and selection exerted by Common Crossbills (Loxia curvirostra complex) and red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) in the extensive mountain pine (Pinus uncinata) forests in the Pyrenees with their le...

This study analyzes 15 years of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite data, together with surface observations of thunderstorms and visibility, to study trends and relationships between aerosols and thunderstorms in southeast China. TRMM data used are from the lightning imaging sensor (LIS) and the precipitation radar (PR). Surface data are human-observed thunderstormoccurrence a...

OBJECTIVES Prior evidence suggests geographic disparities in the effect of maternal education on child nutritional status between countries, between regions and between urban and rural areas. We postulated its effect would also vary by micro-geographic locations (indicated by mountain areas, plain areas and the edge areas) in a Chinese minority area. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conduc...

Species range shifts have been well studied in light of rising global temperatures and the role climate plays in restricting species distribution. In mountain regions, global trends show upward elevational shifts of altitudinal treelines. However, there is significant variation in response between geographic locations driven by climatic and habitat heterogeneity and biotic interactions. Accurat...

structural characteristics and spatial distribution of major farming systems in mountain environment of the iranian plateau as well as their developments in the past few decades have been studied by statistical analysis. using this new approach, towards the study of natural resource allocation methods in mountains of iran, the following resulted: land and resource use practices have followed a ...

Validation that conservation of certain species effectively protects a high proportion of co-occurring species is rare. Our previous work has suggested that an umbrella index based on geographic distribution and life history characteristics would maximize the proportion of conspecifics protected per unit area conserved. Using bird and butterfly data from three mountain ranges in the Great Basin...

Regions are very suitable to implement sustainability monitoring systems (RENN & GOBLE 1996), especially in sensitive mountain regions such as South Tyrol. While maintaining a link to the international level we adapted existing indicator sets to the needs of alpine regions. The result is a layered monitoring system: the basic data gathered at the municipal level are updated yearly, from them th...

The near-global retreat of high-mountain glaciers and the shrinkage of ice fields and ice caps and retreat of their associated outlet glaciers are perhaps the most visible evidence for 20th-century climate change and the recent increase in the globally averaged near-surface temperatures of the Earth’s surface. The loss of high-mountain glaciers—including ice fields, ice caps, and other glaciers...