Martin Beniston

Full Professor, Chair for Climate Research and Director of the Geneva Environment Institute (GEI) at the University of Geneva, Switzerland

Biography

Martin Beniston was born in England in 1953 and holds three passports (Swiss, British, French). He undertook his university studies in England (BSc in Environmental Science at the University of East Anglia and MSc in Atmospheric Physics at the University of Reading), and completed his doctoral dissertation on Atmospheric Modelling at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. More recently, he obtained his Habilitation degree at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich in Climate Modelling.

His career in research has led him to Macquarie University, Sydney, the University of Quebec, the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg and, since 1985, Switzerland. From 1993-1996, he shared his time between a senior scientist position at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich and the vice-chairmanship of one of the working groups of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, that was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize). He was full professor and head of the Department of Geosciences at the University of Fribourg from 1996-2006. On October 1, 2006, he was appointed full professor at the University of Geneva, where he is Director of the new Institute for Environmental Sciences. He is the initiator and coordinator of a major EU Framework Programme 7 project (“ACQWA”) dedicated to assessing changes in water resources in vulnerable mountain regions.

Martin Beniston has over 120 publications in the international literature, has authored 4 books (one in French) and edited or co-edited a further 9 volumes with major publishers. In 2000, he was elected to the Academia Europea.

Further information at URL: www.unige.ch/climate

Abstract: Changing water resources in mountains where snow and ice are a major component of the hydrological cycle

Martin Beniston, Head of the Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva

As the evidence for human-induced climate change becomes clearer, so too does the realization that its effects will have impacts on socio-economic systems, terrestrial ecosystems and important resources like water. Some regions are more vulnerable than others, but clearly mountains are particularly sensitive to environmental change. The quantity and quality of water originating in mountain regions, particularly where snow and ice melt represent a large streamflow component, will be very much influenced by the speed and amplitude of climatic change. As a consequence, the amount of surface water available for irrigated agriculture, water supply systems, hydro-power, tourism, and other sectors such as mining will change, resulting in new paradigms for water use and sharing of a dwindling water resource between economic actors. In today’s climate, there is already much evidence of glacier retreats, permafrost reduction and snowfall decrease in many mountainous regions, with shifts in streamflow regimes. As these changes accelerate in a warming climate, the socio-economic structures of populations living downstream of the mountains will be also impacted, perhaps even more so than in the mountains themselves. These changes will require better preparedness and the development of new strategies to improve the management of water resources in the future.

Key words: Climatic change; water quantity; cryosphere; water management