Mountains as the water towers of the world

Mountains as the water towers of the world

A call for action on the sustainable development goals (SDGs)

Year of publication 2014

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 4 p.

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Document

Full item page

Synopsis (short abstract) Mountains cover 25 percent of the world’s land surface, and directly support 12 percent of the world’s population living within mountain regions. Sustainable mountain development (SMD) should be a global priority, given the multitude of ecosystem goods and services that mountain provide, not just to mountain peoples but to the millions living downstream.Through their watershed function, mountains supply more than half of humanity with water for drinking, irrigation, industry, food and energy production. However, water and other mountain ecosystem services are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Human activities such as urbanization and infrastructure development further aggravate environmental degradation which affects the quantity and quality of water resources. The degradation of mountain ecosystem services has severe consequences for livelihoods and environments of downstream regions.

Language English

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Mountains of the world cover about one-fifth of the land surface, are home to one-tenth of the world's population, and provide livelihood to some of the poorest communities in the world. Mountain lakes and streams are a source of freshwater for countless riparian human communities, support industries, provide water for irrigation and hydropower electricity production and for fish. Some countries situated in mountain areas are landlocked, with no access to marine fishery resources, hence the fish of lakes, streams, rivers and reservoirs are an important source of animal protein, always in short supply in mountain countries. The Fifty-third General Assembly of the United Nations declared the year 2002 the “International Year of Mountains”. With the present document, that reviews the current status of capture fisheries and aquaculture in mountains of developing countries of Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Pacific, the FAI Fisheries Department contributes to the efforts of the United N ations to promote sustainable mountain development. As fisheries play an important role in providing food and income to people in mountain areas, they must be integrated into the rural development and water resource development initiatives. Several problem areas are common to neighbouring countries in mountain regions and fishery resources, such as migratory fish stocks, may have to be shared. Specific action programmes for mountain countries, with collaborative actions on a regional scale, may become the most cost-effective way to address those common problems and share experiences.