The Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor John Beddington, has described as a “terrific initiative”, a new report highlighting oneof the greatest potential threats facing the global system in the foreseeable future – the Third Pole.

The report, produced by the Humanitarian Futures Programme at King’s College London, deals with the issue of water in the region known as The Third Pole – the Hindu-Kush Himalaya region and its ten major river basins.

The Chief Scientist praises one of the key recommendations in the report – that there should be a better dialogue between scientists and humanitarian policy-makers if a fifth of the world’s population who depend on water for their lives and livelihoods, are to be protected from the risk of earthquakes, contaminated water, flooding and disease.

The Director of the Humanitarian Futures Programme, Dr. Randolph Kent, collaborated with the earth scientist from University College London, Dr. Steve Edwards and the Editor of chinadialogue, Isabel Hilton, to write the report: The Waters of The Third Pole: Sources of Threat, Sources of Survival.

Dr. Kent says the purpose was to open up a dialogue on one of the most vulnerable humanitarian hotspots in the world. He describes The Third Pole report as a wake up call to every organisation with a humanitarian role and responsibility, to engage now in long term perspective planning.  “The new humanitarianism we are urging in this report is to anticipate what might be in order to mitigate what are far greater crises threatening The Third Pole area, than those of Haiti, Chile and Qinghai combined.”

Professor Beddington says evidence seems to show the Himalayas are warming faster than the global average and in the higher reaches of the mountain range the increase is faster.  He says the expectation of scientists is that glaciers will continue to retreat and there will be an increase in river run-off with potential humanitarian disasters such as floods, mud-flows and avalanches.  He is not putting a date on these hazards but if not in his lifetime, they were likely in his children’s and grandchildren’s generations.

“I really loved the report.  We’ve got to get the science right and we should be appropriate in indicating a degree of uncertainty about the science.  We need to engage in a proper dialogue with those who are dealing with policy-making in the humanitarian environment.”