CU-IU Climate Research Initiative on the Tibetan Plateau
The Columbia University-Indiana University Climate Research Initiative is co-organized by the Modern Tibetan Studies Program (MTSP) and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center at Indiana University. This initiative was founded in 2022 and made possible by generous support from the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center at Indiana University and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia through a jointly-funded National Resource Center grant.
The initiative has its roots in collaborations started in 2019 by Dr. Eveline Washul, who then served as MTSP director at Columbia and sought to bring Tibet—as the world’s highest and largest plateau, source of many of Asia’s major rivers, and home to communities at the forefront of climate change impacts—more fully into the global conversation on the world’s climate emergency.
With the assistance of Maureen Raymo of the Earth Institute and in ongoing collaboration with Brendan Buckley at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Dr. Washul launched a series of roundtable discussions that brought together social scientists working with Tibetan and Himalayan pastoralist communities and climate scientists who focus on Asia to discuss how interdisciplinary approaches might enrich understandings of climate change in Tibetan and Himalayan regions and contribute to knowledges of global climate change and community resilience. Presenters included researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Australia National University, University of Colorado, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and more whose disciplines spanned hydrology, dendrology, cultural anthropology, geography, history, geology, and resource management, among others.
The CU-IU Climate Research Initiative is in many ways a continuation of the discussions across disciplinary and regional boundaries. The Initiative seeks to engage research related to climate change on the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding regions by helping to integrate work otherwise siloed in academic disciplines and regional institutions or country-focused studies. The initiative is jointly directed by Lauran Hartley, who has served as MTSP Director since October 2021, and Dr. Washul, who is now Assistant Professor in Central Eurasian Studies at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at IU Bloomington.
Materials and recordings from these exchanges are made publicly available below to assist students, instructors, policy makers, think tanks, as well as academics working to study, mitigate and build resilience to the impacts of climate change on the Tibetan Plateau. See also related materials produced under Columbia's five-year MTSP project "Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Change" funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.
April 21, 2023 "Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Environmental Management on the Tibetan Plateau"
This roundtable brought together social science researchers working with Tibetan and Himalayan pastoralist communities and climate scientists who have worked in the Himalayas and Asia to discuss how interdisciplinary approaches might enrich understandings of climate change in the Tibetan and Himalayan regions and contribute to knowledge of global climate change and community resilience.
Speakers:
Pasang Yangjee Sherpa, Assistant Professor, Lifeways in Indigenous Asia at the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies, First Nations and Endangered Languages Program in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia
Húng Nguyen, Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Phurwa Gurung, Ph.D. candidate, University of Colorado at Boulder
Moderators:
Eveline Washul, Assistant Professor, Department of Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University
Lauran Hartley, Director, Modern Tibetan Studies Program, Columbia University
August 9, 2024 "Environmental & Social Impacts of Climate Change on the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayan Region"
This workshop offered a platform for sharing knowledge and disseminating awareness about climate change adaptation strategies, societal and cultural impacts, climate policy and governance, as well as indigenous and local knowledge in the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayan Region. Our aim is a cross-disciplinary approach drawing on glaciology, climatology, ecology, social sciences, and engineering to offer holistic insights into climate change and adaptation.
Selected readings by participants:
Chakraborty, Ritodhi, Mabel D Gergan, Pasang Y Sherpa, and Costanza Rampini. “A Plural Climate Studies Framework for the Himalayas.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 51 (March 17, 2021): 42–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2021.02.005
Gyal, Palden. “The Sociopolitical Impact of a Natural Disaster: The Snow Disaster of the Earth-Rat Year (1828) in Northwestern Tibet.” Climates and Cultures in History 1, no. 1 (June 17, 2024). https://doi.org/10.3197/whpcch.63842135436333
Stein, Sharon, Cash Ahenakew, Will Valley, Pasang Y. Sherpa, Eva Crowson, Tabitha Robin, Wilson Mendes, and Steve Evans. “Toward More Ethical Engagements between Western and Indigenous Sciences.” FACETS 9 (June 28, 2024): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2023-0071
Zhou, Jiake, Gary P. Kofinas, Knut Kielland, Randall B. Boone, Laura Prugh, and Ken D. Tape. “Climate Change, Moose, and Subsistence Harvest: Social-Ecological Assessment of Nuiqsut, Alaska.” Ecology and Society 27, no. 3 (2022). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-13175-270329
Zhou, Jiake, Ken D. Tape, Laura Prugh, Gary Kofinas, Geoff Carroll, and Knut Kielland. “Enhanced Shrub Growth in the Arctic Increases Habitat Connectivity for Browsing Herbivores.” Global Change Biology 26, no. 7 (April 3, 2020): 3809–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15104
Other Selected Readings:
Dondrub, Phurwa. “Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Engaging with Indigenous Peoples in Braiding TEK and Western Science.” North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center , February 15, 2024. https://nccasc.colorado.edu/storymap-engaging-traditional-ecological-knowledge.
McDowell, Graham, Christian Huggel, Holger Frey, Frances M. Wang, Katherine Cramer, and Vincent Ricciardi. “Adaptation Action and Research in Glaciated Mountain Systems: Are They Enough to Meet the Challenge of Climate Change?” Global Environmental Change 54 (November 20, 2018): 19–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.10.012
Rana, Suresh K., Bhawana Dangwal, Vikram S. Negi, and Indra D. Bhatt. “Scientific Research in the Himalaya: Current State of Knowledge, Funding Paradigm and Policy Implications.” Environmental Science & Policy 136 (August 8, 2022): 685–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2022.07.030
Qi, Yingjun, Gongbu Zeren, and Wenjun Li. “Community-Based Climate Adaption: A Perspective on the Interface between a Common Pool Resource System and an Individual-Based Market Transaction System.” Ecological Economics 211 (May 24, 2023): 107891. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107891