Climate impacts

reg retr larly ion change will affect both the natural environment and a number of economic activities. Alpine glaciers may special onfere o repo sible implications for improved water governance to avert possible rivalries between economic actors. By providing a succinct over-view of these issues, the paper thus seeks to emphasize the com-plex interlinks between the natural sciences and the social and economic sciences. As the evidence for human induced climate change becomes clearer, so too does the realization that its effects will have a range be impacted, calling for better preparedness and improved water governance. Regional climate models have over the past decade provided the essential information on shifting precipitation and temperature patterns, while snow, ice, hydrological models and biosphere mod-els are now beginning to allow coupled system approaches in order to assess the changes in basin hydrology and seasonality, amount, and incidence of extreme events in various catchment areas