The ‘State of the Art’ of

Global Change Research in Mountains

An analysis of the 433 accepted abstracts

Global Change and the

World’s MountainsPerth – Scotland – 26-30 September 2010

Geographical Distribution

Global: 20

Africa: 20

Europe: 194North

America: 67

Latin

America: 45

Asia: 82

Pacific: 5

Geographical Distribution : Number of abstracts per region

5%

19%

45%

5%

10%

15%

1%

AfricaAsiaEuropeGlobalLatin AmericaNorth AmericaPacific

Resource Use

&

ManagementEco

system

Services

Decisio

nM

aking

Ecological Systems

BiochemistryBiodiversity

WaterAir

Soil

Global dynamics (environmental, socio-economic, political-insitutional)Land system dynamics

Consequences of changes in mountains on global context

Social Systems

PopulationSocio/Economic

structurePolitical/Institutional

regimesCulture

Technology

31292 34

278150

Number of papers by category

22% of papers: Global environmental change ecological systems ecosystem interactions

310

41

2

10

28

Africa

Asia

Europe

Global

Latin America

North America

ResourceUse&

Management

Ecosystem

Services

Decisio

nM

aking

Ecological Systems

Social Systems

16% of papers: Ecosystem interactions

1

9

371

4

14

2

AfricaAsiaEuropeGlobal Latin AmericaNorth AmericaPacific

ResourceUse&

Management

Ecosystem

Services

Decisio

nM

aking

Ecological Systems

Social Systems

9% of papers:Social systems: decision-making/institutions

26

21

3

4 1

Africa

Asia

Europe

Global

Latin America

North America

ResourceUse&

Management

Ecosystem

Services

Decisio

nM

aking

Ecological Systems

Social Systems

6% of papers: Global environmental change ecological systems ecosystem interactions and

services decision-making

5

105

6

Asia

Europe

Latin America

North America

ResourceUse&

Management

Ecosystem

Services

Decisio

nM

aking

Ecological Systems

Social Systems

Global Change and the

World’s MountainsPerth – Scotland – 26-30 September 2010

Some initial conclusions

• Drivers: greatest focus on global environmental change

• Primary natural science emphasis: ecosystems and

interactions within them

• Few papers on social systems consider global drivers

• Quite a lot of papers on institutions/decision-making

• Rather few papers focusing on resources/land use; more

on how changes in resources/land use drive environmental

changes

• Relatively few papers consider entire socio-ecological

systems/processes (driven by global change)

• Systems > Target > Transformation knowledge