David James Molden

Scientific knowledge is needed to shape transformative pathways toward sustainable development in mountains. During the past four decades, the journal Mountain Research and Development (MRD) has contributed significantly to increasing the global knowledge base on mountain social–ecological systems, publishing evidence-informed agendas for research...

The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) is a rich region in agrobiodiversity. As elsewhere in the world, agrobiodiversity is declining in this region, and this is impacting the functioning of ecosystems and has profound implications for agricultural sustainability and food security. Today, the challenge faced by the global community is how to slow or reverse...

The glacier- and snow-fed river basins of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) mountains provide water to 1.9 billion people in Asia. The signs of climate change in the HKH mountains are clear, with increased warming and accelerated melting of snow and glaciers. This threatens the water, food, energy and livelihood security for many in Asia. The links bet...

The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), the highest mountain biome, also referred as the third pole or the water tower of Asia, is an important repository of biological and cultural diversities and source of varied ecosystems services to 240 million people living within and 1.9 billion in the mountains and downstream. The region has been in spotlight for be...

The devastating 2015 earthquakes in Nepal highlighted the need for effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) in mountains, which are inherently subject to hazards and increasingly vulnerable to extreme events. As multiple UN policy frameworks stress, DRR is crucial to mitigate the mounting environmental and socioeconomic costs of disasters globally....

The Upper Indus Basin’s (UIB) unique geographical positioning and its ecosystem contributions to the downstream basin in the form of water and energy are of critical importance. UIB is also among the most vulnerable water towers in the world vis-a-vis climate as well as a host of environmental and socio-economic changes. The paucity of ground obser...

With rising energy demand in Asia, the high potential for hydropower development and the need for low-carbon energy development, hydropower would seem to have a significant role in South Asia’s energy future. However, the extent of hydropower development will depend on several risk factors, including the cost of alternative energy sources, the envi...

An effective placement of irrigation efficiency in water management will contribute towards meeting the pre-eminent global water challenges of our time such as addressing water scarcity, boosting crop water productivity and reconciling competing water needs between sectors. However, although irrigation efficiency may appear to be a simple measure o...

The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) is the pulse of the planet. Being at the top of the world, changes happen here before anywhere else, and its beat vibrates across the globe. But urgent actions are required to ensure the health of this global asset and the wellbeing of its people. The uniqueness of HKH mountain people should be recognized and prioritiz...

The people and mountain environments of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) have not been isolated from the impacts of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The social, economic and environmental impacts have been harsh and have exacerbated old risks and vulnerabilities and highlighted new ones. The long-term consequences will be profound unless w...

This article investigates the relation between water scarcity and water management. There are many different perceptions of water scarcity, which can include the conditions of arid environments, a general lack of access to water, insufficient water at a basin scale, or difficulty in meeting competing needs. All these issues will intensify with grea...

The mountain cryosphere provides fresh water and other ecosystem services to half of humanity. The loss of the mountain cryosphere due to global warming is already evident in many parts of the world and has direct implications to people living in mountain areas and indirect implications to those who live downstream of glaciated river basins. Despit...

The devastating 2015 earthquakes in Nepal highlighted the need for effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) in mountains, which are inherently subject to hazards and increasingly vulnerable to extreme events. As multiple UN policy frameworks stress, DRR is crucial to mitigate the mounting environmental and socioeconomic costs of disasters globally....

Mountains are large landforms raised above the surface of the earth emerging into peaks and ranges. Mountains occupy 22% of the world’s land surface area and are home to about 13% of the world’s population (FAO 2015). While about 915 million people live in mountainous region, less than 150 million people live above 2,500 m above sea level (masl), a...

Rice is the most important crop for food security and livelihoods of the rural population in Bihar, India. In spite of good soil and water resources, rice water productivity (WP) is very low in Bihar. Trends in WP and key factors influencing WP over 20 years (1991–2010) in 11 Bihar districts were analysed using panel data to help elucidate reasons...

Rice is the most important crop for food security and livelihoods of the rural population in Bihar, India. In spite of good soil and water resources, rice water productivity (WP) is very low in Bihar. Trends in WP and key factors influencing WP over 20 years (1991-2010) in 11 Bihar districts were analysed using panel data to help elucidate reasons...

Rice is the most important crop for food security and livelihoods of the rural population in Bihar, India. In spite of good soil and water resources, rice water productivity (WP) is very low in Bihar. Trends in WP and key factors influencing WP over 20 years (1991-2010) in 11 Bihar districts were analysed using panel data to help elucidate reasons...

The Hindu Kush Himalaya is undergoing rapid change, driven by twin megatrends of climate change and urbanisation, which threaten their crucial water-provisioning services for over a billion people across Asia and undermine quality of life, economic development, and environmental sustainability within the region. This chapter examines current and fu...

Dedicated academic mountain journals emerged as of the beginning of the 20th century from a need to collect very diverse work focusing on mountains as a fascinating and challenging environment as well as a place of unique livelihood systems. We present a brief overview of the four peer-reviewed, indexed journals that exist today for mountain schola...

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) supports regional and transboundary cooperation to meet challenges of climate change, disaster risks, and sustainable development in the Hindu Kush–Himalaya (HKH). Action to sustain the HKH has the potential to directly improve the lives of more than one fourth of the world's pop...

The Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) mountains provide a range of services to people in Asia, including water, food, energy, and biodiversity. About 1.3 billion people living downstream of these mountains benefit from HKH water that serves vast irrigated areas in ten major river basins. The food produced from this water contributes to the food security o...

The Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) mountains provide a range of services to people in Asia, including water, food, energy, and biodiversity. About 1.3 billion people living downstream of these mountains benefit from HKH water that serves vast irrigated areas in ten major river basins. The food produced from this water contributes to the food security o...

The HKH is an important energy source, carbon stock and biosphere reserve, all of which are important for our future. The HKH is certainly an asset for Asia and the globe. There is also a realization that in the HKH we are experiencing change in many different dimensions, along different sectors that intersect and diverge – something we refer to as...

The Himalayas have always been at the center of global seismological discourse, primarily because the region sits on a dangerous fault line. At the junction of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, an immense amount of energy builds up as the Indian plate continuously moves under the Eurasian plate. This buildup of energy has given rise to the h...

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development is coordinating the Hindu Kush Himalayan Monitoring and Assessment Programme, which will be carried out with partners and individual experts. The assessment addresses the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainable mountain development and will serve as a basis for evidence...

The Hindu Kush Himalayas – an arc of mountains stretching from Afghanistan, through Pakistan, China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, clear to Myanmar – are a gift to Asia, and the world. They are a well-known destination for those seeking adventure, spirituality, recreation, and biological and cultural diversity. However, as the source of ten...

The Himalayas, Hindu Kush, Karakorum mountains and the Tibetan Plateau make up the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region, an area that has more snow and ice resources than any other region outside of the Polar Regions (Fig. 1). The HKH region extends 3500 km over all or part of eight countries from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east. About...

The Atlas sheds light on the state and fate of the water resources of the Hindu Kush Himalayas, a region that is highly vulnerable to climate change and one of the poorest regions in the world. The information in the Atlas presents science-based information that will help develop solutions and take the necessary action to deal with changes in the r...

Not Available. HYDRO Nepal JournalJournal of Water, Energy and EnvironmentIssue: 17, July 2015

The Hindu Kush Himalayas are called the water towers of Asia as they are the source of 10 major rivers and have the largest snow and ice deposits outside the two poles. Water emanating from the HKH provides food, energy and ecosystem services to up to 1.3 billion people. Climate change and socio-economic and demographic changes have put unprecedent...

Agriculture is the largest consumer of water and total evapotranspiration from global agricultural land could double in next 50 years if trends in food consumption and current practices of production continue. There is an imminent need to improve the water use efficiency or more importantly the water productivity. This chapter explains in detail th...

The human influence on the global hydrological cycle is now the dominant force behind changes in water resources across the world and in regulating the resilience of the Earth system. The rise in human pressures on global freshwater resources is in par with other anthropogenic changes in the Earth system (from climate to ecosystem change), which ha...

Mountain Platform The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) believes in a future where the mountain people of the Hindu Kush–Himalayas can experience enhanced livelihoods, equity, and social and environmental security; where they can adapt to environmental, socioeconomic, and climate change; and where future generations...

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The Hindu Kush–Himalayan region is the source of 10 major rivers serving over 1.3 billion people. In spite of this abundance, mountain people have limited access to water for food, households and energy. Climate change is increasing the uncertainty about water availability and the frequency of extreme weather events. To buffer seasonal variations a...

The integrated role of water in ecosystems and, in particular, in agroecosystems, as well as the multiple use of water - across various sectors that have increasing demands. have been widely recognised. But regions and institutions are stillstruggling to resolve issues around water - be it scarcity, accessibility, or degradation. Mostly they are ca...

NOT AVAILABLE AS PDF YET - Increasing water productivity is an important element in improved water management for sustainable agriculture, food security and healthy ecosystem functioning. Water productivity is defined as the amount of agricultural output per unit of water depleted and can be assessed for crops, trees, livestock and fish. This chapt...

Various food and financial crises have increased the pressure on natural resources while expanding on alternative ways of considering agroecosystems as potential long-term providers of ecosystem services if managed in a sustainable and equitable way. Through the study of interrelations between ecosystems, water, and food security, this book has aim...

The paper demonstrates the application of a new water accounting plus (WA+) framework to produce information on depletion of water resources, storage change, and land and water productivity in the Indus basin. It shows how satellite-derived estimates of land use, rainfall, evaporation (E), transpiration (T), interception (I) and biomass production...

Thirty years ago, 8 countries of the Hindu Kush–Himalayan region (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan) realized the importance of mountains and established the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). With an 8-country charter, ICIMOD serves as a regional intergovernmental center for...

Coping with water scarcity and growing competition for water among different sectors requires proper water management strategies and decision processes. A prerequisite is a clear understanding of the basin hydrological processes, manageable and unmanageable water flows, the interaction with land use and opportunities to mitigate the negative effect...

Coping with the issue of water scarcity and growing competition for water among different sectors requires proper water management strategies and decision processes. A pre-requisite is a clear understanding of the basin hydrological processes, manageable and unmanageable water flows, the interaction with land use and opportunities to mitigate the n...

The paper describes the application of a new Water Accounting Plus (WA+) framework to produce spatial information on water flows, sinks, uses, storages and assets, in the Indus Basin, South Asia. It demonstrates how satellite-derived estimates of land use, land cover, rainfall, evaporation (E), transpiration (T), interception (I) and biomass produc...

Asia accounts for 70% of the world's irrigated area and is home to some of the oldest and largest irrigation schemes. While these irrigation schemes played an important role in ensuring food security for billions of people in the past, their current state of affairs leaves much to be desired. This paper takes forward the IWMI-FAO-ADB (Asian Develop...

Water scarcity is a reality in the world today, and is a major threat to our food production systems that have to provide enough food for a growing and wealthier population. Managing water for agriculture is a major part of the solution for scarcity. This chapter provides information on water availability and its use in agriculture now and in the f...

Accurate estimates of evapotranspiration across different land uses are a major challenge in the process of understanding water availability and uses in a river basin. This study demonstrated a remote sensing-based procedure for accurately generating evaporative depletion and runoff in mountainous areas using Landsat ETM+ images combined with stand...

This paper provides the methodology and results of a cross-scale diagnostic performance assessment program of the irrigation water management in the old lands of the Nile Delta of Egypt. The analysis was done at three levels; main canal level, branch canals level and on-farm level of the Meet Yazid command (82,740 ha) for the year 2008–2009 to high...

Water scarcity is already a reality. More food will be required for a growing and wealthier and urbanized population that will put more pressure on water resources. With several water-related limits reached or breached - groundwater decline, shrinking rivers and threatened fisheries - we must ask, 'Will there be enough water to grow enough food? It...

This article summarizes the results of water productivity assessment in 10 river basins across Asia, Africa and South America, representing a range of agro-climatic and socio-economic conditions. Intensive farming in the Asian basins gives much greater agricultural outputs and higher water productivity. Largely subsistence agriculture in Africa has...

The Syrdarya River basin in Central Asia exhibits symptoms of scarcity because of growing competition between hydropower upstream and environment, cities and agriculture downstream. Different approaches to water management, based on water savings in agriculture could relieve the stress of competition, yet keep alive a vibrant agriculture. The Ferga...

This paper provides an overview of poverty levels, hydrology, agricultural production systems and water productivity in the Nile Basin. There are opportunities to manage water better in the basin for use in agriculture to improve food security, livelihoods and economic growth by taking into account not only the water in the river, but also by impro...

As economies develop and societies change, emerging sets of challenges are placed on water resources and its governance. Population growth and economic development tend to drive the demand for more water, and push river basins into situations of scarcity. Agriculture, globally the largest user of water, is a major driver of water scarcity, and also...

In its broadest sense, water productivity (WP) is the net return for a unit of water used. Improvement of water productivity aims at producing more food, income, better livelihoods and ecosystem services with less water. There is considerable scope for improving water productivity of crop, livestock and fisheries at field through to basin scale. Pr...

The authors of the recently completed Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture (CA) concluded that there are sufficient water resources to produce food for a growing population but that trends in consumption, production and environmental patterns, if continued, will lead to water crises in many parts of the world. Only if we act...

Population growth, arable land and fresh water limits, and climate change have profound implications for the ability of agriculture to meet this century’s demands for food, feed, fiber, and fuel while reducing the environmental impact of their production. Success depends on the acceptance and use of contemporary molecular techniques, as well as the...

This book contains 11 papers which cover a range of vital topics in the areas of water, agriculture, food security and ecosystems - the entire spectrum of developing and managing water in agriculture, from fully irrigated to fully rainfed lands. They are about people and society, why they decide to adopt certain practices and not others and, in par...

Providing the water needed to produce food for more than 9 billion people by 2050 seems simple: agriculture must produce more food with less water. However, three complex issues are involved: First, water, food production and rural development do not have a simple correlation. Second, there are interactions between processes at local, basin and glo...

This article was submitted without an abstract, please refer to the full-text PDF file.

This article was submitted without an abstract, please refer to the full-text PDF file.