Glaciers and mountains: melting water towers will aggravate global crises (report)

Posted on by

The United Nations World Water Development Report 2025, published by UNESCO on behalf of UN-Water, reveals the extent to which climate disruption, biodiversity loss, and unsustainable activities are transforming mountain environments at an unprecedented rate, threatening the water resources upon which billions of people and countless ecosystems depend. There is now an urgent need for international cooperation and adaptation strategies and actions to face the unfolding crisis in our mountains and glaciers.

Read More

Global Water Futures and the UNESCO Chair in Mountain Water Sustainability have contributed significantly to this report, specifically for Chapters 2 and 8. We would like to draw particular attention to the contribution of Zoë Johnson (HQP, Early Career Scientist) as first author for these chapters.

“The Great Thaw” book features GWFO sites across Western Canada

Posted on by

The Great Thaw: A Homage in Art to Vanishing Glaciers brings science and art together to inspire knowledge sharing and promote practical strategies for glacier preservation and adaptation. Featuring over 140 artworks paired with scientifically grounded explanations, The Great Thaw takes readers on a powerful journey to explore the impacts of climate change on glaciers and the broader cryosphere — snow and ice that sustain life in mountain, forest, and downstream regions.

View or Download Here

World Day for Glaciers and World Water Day celebrations in Paris and online

Posted on by

As part of the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation 2025, a joint celebration of the World Day for Glaciers and World Water Day will be organized to highlight the accelerating threat of glacier melt and its impact on water security, communities and ecosystems. With glaciers melting at record rates, this joint celebration will underscore the importance of glaciers as “water towers of the world” for billions of people who rely on them.

Director John Pomeroy will be speaking at numerous celebrations and side events on March 20th and 21st at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. Register to join the celebrations online by visiting each event’s webpage.

March 20, 2025
2:30 AM CST – Scientific Research: Cryosphere Observation and Modelling
9:30 AM CST – Chronicles of Cryospheric Loss: Weaving Science, Art, and Voices from the Ice

March 21, 2025
3:45 AM CST – The Impact of Melting Glaciers  (Keynote)
7:00 AM CST – Melting Glaciers, Lasting Impacts: Addressing Societal and Environmental Challenges, Solutions and Actions with a Changing Mountain Cryosphere 
7:00 AM CST – Mountain Voices: Science, Stories and Solutions  (Keynote)
9:00 AM CST – The world’s changing cryosphere: Advances and future challenges in data, information, and knowledge-building

Job Posting – Research Technician (UAV Specialist), Centre for Hydrology / Global Water Futures Observatories

Posted on by

The Global Water Futures Observatories (GWFO) is Canada’s premier national university-operated scientific freshwater observation network. It operates 64 instrumented basins, lakes, rivers, and wetlands, 15 deployable water measurement systems, and 18 state-of-the-art water laboratories that monitor Canada’s drainage basins and aquatic systems in unprecedented detail at a national scale, across seven provinces and territories, including the Great Lakes Basin and three other major river basins.

Primary Purpose: The Centre for Hydrology at the University of Saskatchewan is seeking a Research Technician (Unoccupied Aerial Vehicle (UAV) specialist) to provide UAV operation support to research projects conducted in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

For more information, please see full job posting below:

uav-specialist-posting_2025

Downloadable Posting PDF