In early 2022, GEO Mountains launched 11 Task Groups. Collectively, the Task Groups span the full breadth of the GEO Mountains Implementation Plan – from helping contribute to our inventories and supporting nascent systematic mountain monitoring initiatives to developing training and capacity development resources (including “knowledge packages”) that seek to deliver the latest science into policy circles effectively. The overall objectives of each Task Group are summarised below.
Our Task Groups are open and inclusive. In addition to helping drive GEO Mountains forwards, getting involved may bring multiple benefits to participants themselves, including collaborating with colleagues across diverse disciplines and regions; maintaining the legacy and extending the impact of shorter-term projects; and supporting Open Data and Open Science efforts. Several Task Groups also still have open co-leadership positions available. We warmly invite anyone interested in contributing their expertise to one or more Task Group(s) to get in touch. The next Task Group meetings will be scheduled to take place in early 2023.
Get in touch and join a task group
image by Nicolas Prieto on Unsplash
Task Groups Objectives and Activities
1.1 a) Developing, maintaining, and sharing a list of relevant gridded datasets and other tools |
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Objective: To contribute to the development of the GEO Mountains General Inventory by providing links to (and key metadata of) relevant, useful, important, free and open datasets.
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1.1 b) Developing and maintaining a list of interdisciplinary in situ mountain observational infrastructure and associated datasets |
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Objective: To contribute to the development of the GEO Mountains In Situ Inventory by contributing metadata describing interdisciplinary mountain stations and infrastructure, as well as links to associated datasets. The group aims to add sites that are currently not in the inventory, as well as to add / improve / update information about sites that are already represented.
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1.2 Contributing to a series of regional workshops / consultations |
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Objective: To contribute to the next phase of GEO Mountains community and stakeholder engagement work. Building upon virtual consultations help in 2021 and 2022, the group will help support GEO Mountains planned in person engagements in several mountain regions in 2023. These events will engage with data providers, seek to exploit existing data, support the establishment of regional Mountain Observatories, and contribute to capacity development. The events will also continue to seeks to establish the current “data landscape” in key mountain regions globally (data availability and user data needs), identify related outstanding barriers / challenges, and co-develop potential solutions.
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1.4 Contribute Knowledge Packages via GEO Mountains to the GEO Knowledge Hub (GKH), thereby making any relevant work / outputs more reproducible / extendable |
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Objective: To deliver “Knowledge Packages” pertaining to mountain-relevant applications to the GKH under the banner of GEO Mountains, and advocate for open and reproducible science (including as a basis for sound policy, decision making, and actions). An example can be found here.
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2.1 Analyse the extent to which data from mountain observatories are freely available, and which measurement protocols are followed |
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Objective: Once it is sufficiently populated, to analyze the GEO Mountains In Situ Inventory (metadata analysis) in order to establish the extent to in situ mountain datasets are shared, and whether established observation protocols are routinely applied in mountains. The group may also undertake the more ambitious tasks of seeking to identify the most critical data gaps (with respect to space, time, and elevation) for a wide range of interdisciplinary variables by means of a coverage analysis, which may be followed up by a set of recommendations for improving the situation.
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2.2 Contribute to the MRI’s existing Mountain Observatories (MOs) and Elevation Dependent Climate Change (EDCC) Working Groups to support the development of a Unified High Elevation Platform (UHOP) and a global network of Mountain Observatories |
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Objective: To identify opportunities for GEO Mountains to contribute to the activities of the two Working Groups, as well as to take on feedback from the WG to further improve GEO Mountains’ provision of datasets and services to the community (mainly the research community in this context).
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2.3 Contribute to a GEO Mountains workshop to identify Essential Mountain Societal / Socio-Economic Variables |
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Objective: To help continue work associated with the workshop held at the IMC2022 on identifying critical societal variables that should be monitored and obtained as priorities in order to track, understand and better predict the impacts of change (both climatic and societal) on mountain socio-ecological systems in an integrated sense.
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2.4 Develop a novel, global-scale spatial dataset (or datasets) related to mountain socio-ecological systems |
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Objective: To develop a novel spatial delineation of mountain socio-ecological systems. The resultant dataset(s) should help to fill key data gaps in the quest to characterise complex integrated mountain socio-ecological systems. The activity will be partly informed by the workshop organised in Task Group 2.3, as well as the outputs of other work on Essential Mountain Variables (e.g. EMCVs and Essential Biodiversity Variables in Mountains)
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2.5 Establish links with the paleoscience community to help ensure that paleodata pertaining to mountains are discoverable, accessible, and usable |
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Objective: To ensure that paleodata is sufficiently represented in the GEO Mountains General Inventory. The group seeks to strengthen the engagement of the paleoscience community, including with respect to applying provided mountain paleo datasets (e.g. mountain climate modelling or natural hazard quantification work). This group has not yet met due to low participation; anybody interesting in working on this task is urged to get in touch! |
3.4 Develop educational, training materials and capacity building activities related to the drivers, processes, and impacts of environmental, ecological, and societal change in mountains |
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Objective: To lead and coordinate the development of education, training, and capacity building activities within the scope of GEO Mountains. Accordingly, the geographic emphasis is on (but not limited to) the focal regions of the Adaptation at Altitude programme. The outputs will be shared here.
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3.5 Applying existing data and information resources to respond to pre-identified assessment and policy needs |
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Objective: To ensure that GEO Mountains makes and coordinates relevant contributions of data, information and expertise to major global assessment exercises and policy agendas, e.g. the IPCC, IPBES, UNFCCC/Paris Agreement, UN Sustainable Development Goals/2030 Agenda and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, as well as more regional assessment efforts and related exercises. The outputs will be shared here |
