Lesson 1: Why Mountains Matter Flashcards
Ecosystem services:
More than half of the world’s population relies on the fresh water that collects in mountain regions (for…?)
Drinking, domestic use, irrigation, industry, transportation, etc…
Ecosystem services:
Mountains comprise ___ of the world’s surface and over ___ of the world’s population lives within, or near to, mountainous areas.
1/4
1/4
Ecosystem services:
Hydropower from mountain watersheds makes up nearly ___ of the world’s entire electricity supply.
20%
Ecosystem services:
What are some services mountains provide?
Timer and other products (i.e. minerals), capturing and storing rainfall and moisture, maintaining water quality, regulating river flow and reducing erosion and downstream sedimentation.
Biodiversity:
With increasing altitudes, changes in temperature, moisture, and soils can create a dense juxtapositions of differing ecological communities. Habitats can change radically (from jungles to glaciers) within just a few ___.
km
Biodiversity:
What is Endemic?
Many plants and animals are endemic to mountain regions (can be thought of as islands), having evolved in isolation over millennia to inhabit specialized alpine environments.
Biodiversity:
Where can the last of the world’s mountain gorilla’s be found?
- Volcanoes of the Virunga Mountains along the border of Rwanda in East Africa
- Less than 300 can be found
Cultural diversity:
Of the 1,000+ languages spoken in New Guinea, 700+ originate in the ___ ___ ___, which cover only 30% of the island.
New Guinea Highlands.
Cultural diversity:
Some of the world’s most important food staples (e.g. …?) were domesticated in mountains. Industrious mountain peoples, long ago, developed agricultural production systems and strategies based on altitudinal and ecological zonation.
Potatoes, wheat, corn, and beans.
What are 4 groups of indigenous peoples living in the Mountains that are talked about?
- ) Quechua people of Bolivia, Equador, and Peru in South American Andes
- ) Southern Tuchone First Nations of the southern Yukon in Canada
- ) Nakhi and Yi people of Hunan Province, China
- ) Sherpa peoples of the Mount Everest region in Nepal
Tourism:
One of the world’s largest and fastest-growing industries, can have negative and positive effects. What are they?
+: Promoting sustainable development, or balancing human needs with the preservation of the environment
-: Impacts of large numbers of people on fragile mountain ecosystems, and the loss of traditional cultural values.
Cultural significance skipped…
Sites of exclusion:
What is exclusion as talked about in the video?
- In many parts of the world, they can be places of debilitating poverty, places on society’s margins where communications are poor and infrastructure, jobs, and services are sorely lacking.
- Foreign investment and hyper-development have made some mountains “destinations” only for the wealthy, and generally unaffordable for everyone else
What are some of the various criteria to consider when defining a mountain?
- Individuality
- Elevation (height above sea level)
- Local relief (difference in elevation between the highest and lowest points in a given area)
- Geology
- Climatic and Vegetation Characteristics
We usually think of mountains then as…?
Both elevated and dissected landscapes, with steeper slopes than are typically found in lowlands.
___ features are dominant in the Himalayas, whereas ___ and ___ summit uplands fill out and define much of the American Rockies.
Serrated
Broad and gentle
