Mountains are complex social–ecological systems (MSES) and natural laboratories where the impacts of global environmental change become particularly visible. Rapid climate warming, cryosphere loss, shifting hydrological regimes, land-use change, and socio-economic transformation are jointly reshaping mountain environments. These changes affect MSES or specific parts such as ecosystems, water resources, natural hazards, livelihoods, and human well-being, with consequences that extend far beyond mountain regions. As the planet’s water towers, mountains regulate freshwater availability along the mountain-to-lowland continuum and provide essential ecosystem-services. At the same time, mountain communities are often highly exposed and vulnerable to climate-related hazards such as floods, landslides, droughts, and compound or cascading events. Understanding how hazards, exposure, and vulnerability interact in space and time is therefore essential for effective climate risk management and long-term adaptation.
This session invites inter- and transdisciplinary contributions that examine past, present, and future environmental change in MSES and contributing from different perspectives to the understanding of MSES. Mountain regions present specific scientific and societal challenges.
Complex terrain remains difficult to adequately parameterize in models, high-elevation monitoring infrastructure is limited in many parts of the world, and socio-economic dynamics are often insufficiently captured in environmental assessments. Addressing these knowledge gaps is critical for developing robust and equitable adaptation strategies.
We particularly encourage contributions that integrate physical and social processes, explore cross-scale feedbacks and compound risks, advance high-elevation monitoring and remote sensing, apply climate downscaling approaches, and combine process-based, data-driven, and participatory methods. Studies engaging stakeholders, co-producing knowledge, and linking science to decision-making and policy are especially welcome.
By fostering dialogue across disciplines and between science and practice, this session aims to advance a systems-based understanding of MSES and support transferable approaches to sustainable adaptation under global environmental change.
This session is endorsed and supported by the Mountain Research Initiative and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.