ch. 1. Climate change modeling for local adaptation in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas / Armando Lamadrid, Ilan Kelman -- ch. 2. Climate change and its impacts in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas : an introduction / Eklabya Sharma -- ch. 3. Assessing the hydrological impacts of climate change on the Amu Darya River, Afghanistan / Ashutosh Mohanty, Manoranjan Mishra, Devesh Sharma, Mohammad Waheed Ibrahimzada -- ch. 4. Technocratic approaches and community contexts : viewpoints of those most at risk from environmental disasters in mountain areas, Northern Pakistan / Farida Azhar-Hewitt, Kenneth Hewitt -- ch. 5. Does climate modeling help when studying adaptation to environmental changes? : the case of Ladakh, India / Virginie Le Masson, Krishnan Nair -- ch. 6. Tibetan nomads facing an uncertain future : impacts of climate change on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau / Marius Warg Næss -- ch. 7. Floods, landslides, and adapting to climate change in Nepal : what role for climate change models? / Karen Sudmeier-Rieux, Jean-Christophe Gaillard, Sundar Sharma, Jérôme Dubois, Michel Jaboyedoff -- ch. 8. Bhutan : modeling and adaptation in the eastern Himalayas / Harsha Meenawat, Benjamin K. Sovacool -- ch. 9. Creative adaptation : Bangladesh's resilience to flooding in a changing climate / Alia Lauren Khan -- ch. 10. Myanmar : assessing freshwater vulnerability in the Irrawaddy and Salween river basins / Aura Salmivaara -- ch. 11. Scientific and social uncertainties in climate change : the Hindu Kush-Himalaya in regional perspective / Sarah Opitz-Stapleton, Karen MacClune.

This book presents a portrait of the social advantages and limitations of climate change related modeling in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region. Physical systems modeling - such as of climate, weather, water, and soil - can be useful planning tools, and are essential to the forecasts and projections used operationally for decisions on climate and development. However, these models and their limitations are rarely discussed in terms of how they are interpreted, misinterpreted, used, not used, needed and not needed by society at the local level for climate change adaptation. This publication addresses the implied but largely uncritiqued relationships between scientific modeling knowledge and local adaptation responses. It also presents theoretical perspectives on modeling and adaptation, supported by case studies of model use, non-use, interpretation and misinterpretation in the HKH region for application at the local level. It provides a critical angle into the value of modeling at multiple decision making scales in society, but focused on local needs. Case studies are presented from a variety of HKH countries, as defined by ICIMOD (which includes Bangladesh and Myanmar).

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