DUSHANBE, 28.02.2025 /NIAT “Khovar”/. On the initiative of the Glacier Study Center, the Agency for Chemical, Biological, Radiation and Nuclear Safety and the Institute for the Study of Problems of Asian and European States of the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan, an international scientific and practical conference “International Year of Glacier Conservation and Scientific Assessment of Cryospheric Processes” was held on February 27. This was reported to NIAT “Khovar” by the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan.
The conference participants were provided with detailed and accurate information from specialists in the field of glaciology in Russia and abroad.
The initiative to declare 2025 as the International Year of Glacier Conservation was presented by the President of Tajikistan, His Excellency Emomali Rahmon, in 2021 at the first meeting of the Water and Climate Coalition, which was based on scientific findings.
Under the impact of climate change, cryosphere degradation is accelerating across the globe. The 2019 International Reports on Climate Change in the Oceans and Cryosphere and Climate Change Mitigation for Glaciers show that one-third of the world’s glaciers could disappear by the end of this century.
It was noted that over the past 50 years, more than 1,000 of Tajikistan’s total glaciers have completely melted, and the total volume of glaciers in the republic has decreased by about a third. Monitoring and researching glaciers is important for predicting water availability and sustainable management in various sectors of the economy, including agriculture and energy.
Today, the Glacier Research Center is one of the key structures of the National Academy of Sciences in the field of glacier research, solving climate problems and implementing the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Centre played an important role in the implementation of the Republic’s global initiatives in the field of water and climate, and for the first time since 1980 began developing a register of the Republic’s glaciers and achieved significant success in this direction.
Based on scientific research, the country’s glacier balance volume is covered by research and study, and the information is fed into the World Meteorological Organization’s global glacier monitoring network as convincing research results.
At the suggestion of Tajikistan and France, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the International Decade for Action in Cryospheric Sciences, which sets profound challenges for scientists and experts in the field of studying the republic’s glaciers.
“Today’s conference is the beginning of scientific events of the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan after the official start of the International Year of Glacier Conservation, the purpose of which, first of all, is to unite the efforts of scientists and experts, combining science with production to achieve success and results of this initiative,” it was noted at the conference.
PHOTO: National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan