Policy recommendations to strengthen food and water security in mountains and downstream.

 

The Policy recommendations to strengthen food and water security in mountains and downstream include: 

■ Enhance data and monitoring: Huge gaps remain in the monitoring of glaciers, particularly in high mountain regions. Improved observation coverage and resolution, data management and global data sharing can enhance analyses and prediction services that support timely actions to address threats, risks and impacts on water and food security. This includes establishing a global inventory of existing perennial ice and snow masses and of water quality aspects. Consolidating cooperation and partnerships among scientific institutions and relevant stakeholders involved in cryosphere monitoring and research is essential, including making research findings more accessible to all stakeholders. Strengthening of early warning systems, ideally based on real-time monitoring and data, is an urgent imperative (Adler et al., 2022; UNESCO, 2025). The reporting efforts under the Enhanced Transparency Framework of the Paris Agreement, and in particular The new targets for the global goal on adaptation (GGA), are expected to allow reporting against food, ecosystem and poverty targets, disaggregated by regions.

■ Adaptation and best practice in the agriculture sector: The current pace, depth and scope of water- and agriculture-related adaptation strategies are insufficient to address climate-induced risks and vulnerabilities. Strengthening knowledge development and management, capacity building, institutional support and funding is essential to promote robust and low-regrets adaptation to cryosphere-induced hydrological change, to ensure agricultural production and food security. Inclusive governance structures and processes, including the design and implementation of adaptation policies and measures, can help to realize such capacity. Improving adaptive capacity will require addressing the root causes of vulnerability in mountains, which include poverty, marginalization, ecosystem degradation and inequitable gender dynamics. Acknowledging and respecting the many cultures and diverse local and Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems in mountains, which form the backbone of community adaptive capacity, can create strong foundations for context-specific and integrated adaptation and mitigation strategies (FAO, 2017; Adler et al., 2022; UNESCO, 2025). 

■ Governance and policy: Mountains receive less attention than lowlands and are relatively absent from national, regional and global policy agendas. The management of mountain waters takes place primarily within country borders, through national legislation, policy and strategies. Despite their critical role in climate change adaptation, national climate policies and plans rarely recognize the unique challenges related to glaciers. For instance, while 57 percent of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) submitted by 1 January 2024 considered observed or projected climaterelated impacts on freshwater-related ecosystem services (Crumpler et al., 2025), only a few include glacier-specific measures. Mountain countries have the opportunity to integrate mountain-related commitments in their NDCs, National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and National Biodiversity Strategiesand Action Plans (NBSAPs) to highlight climate and biodiversity action on mountains as key priorities. This prioritization can help to take advantageof funding mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund, Adaptation Fund,Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage and Global Environment Facility. Furthermore, national planning that involves both glacier and downstream countries would help promote long-term adaptation, resilience-building and vulnerability reduction efforts, along with risk management during extreme events such as landslides and glacial lake outburst floods (UNESCO).

■ Transboundary governance: Since nearly all large rivers originate in mountain areas and are frequently shared among several countries, including cryosphere-fed rivers, transboundary water governance based on a watershed approach, or integrated river basin management, needs to carefully consider the significant benefits that mountains can provide to riparian countries. Regional cooperation among countries to foster transboundary landscape and river basin governance is an important mechanism for advancing sustainable development in mountains, including food and water security. Treaties or agreements can enhance cooperation through data and information sharing, help to fill gaps in human and institutional technical capacity and promote and foster dialogue and diplomacy (UNESCO, 2025). River basin organizations established for the transboundary rivers play an increasingly important role in ensuring holistic approaches to managing water, land and other natural resources from mountains to river mouths.

 ■ Youth, Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge and gender: Expanding and strengthening the meaningful engagement of children and young people in decision-making and policymaking processes at all levels can ensure greater diversity, inclusion and representation and encourage a willingness to think big, innovatively and with a long-term perspective (United Nations, 2023). Youth-led programmes, regional cooperation, inclusive governance, funding, education, innovation and Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge can drive long-term solutions. Youth-led initiatives and combining Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge with science can guide policies on protected areas, sustainable land use and early warning systems. Mainstreaming gender in agricultural policies and plans, including risk and vulnerability assessment frameworks, is essential for inclusivity to build resilience and reduce food insecurity in mountain regions (UNESCO, 2025). 

■ Finance: Finance is a key enabler for enhancing agricultural production and promoting food security in mountains, thereby building resilience to cryosphere-induced hydrological change (UNEP, 2023). While substantial funding is potentially available for investment in sustainable development in mountain regions – including for agriculture – access to major support programmes has been relatively limited and underutilized (McDowell et al., 2020). Innovative and accessible international, regional, national and local funds should be mobilized to support water, agriculture and infrastructure investments. This should include increasing climate finance to support vulnerable mountains and downstream communities. Enhanced uptake of available support and funding could help to ease the burden for mountain communities and countries, for which the capacity and ability of actors to identify, access and mobilize resources need strengthening (UNEP, 2023).

 ■ Sustainable agricultural practices: Agriculture accounts for more than 70 percent of global freshwater withdrawal (UNESCO, 2025). FAO emphasizes the need to further integrate sustainable agricultural approaches, to address challenges such as biodiversity loss, climate change and land degradation. An evaluation of the implementation of Conference Resolution 7/2019 offers a review of the integration of sustainable agricultural approaches, including agroecology (FAO, 2025a).12 Promoting sustainable practices and agrifood systems in mountain areas is key, as they play a central role in regulating water flows, reducing surface runoff, limiting soil erosion and enhancing the infiltration and storage of water in soils and aquifers. Sustainable land management approaches can improve water retention in agricultural landscapes, while preventing soil degradation and downstream sedimentation and thereby reducing disaster risk (Romeo et al., 2021). Changing farming practices and diversifying livelihood strategies for smallholders and pastoralists is a common adaptation strategy in mountains. Examples of sustainable practices include terrace farming on mountain slopes, agroforestry, reforestation, contour farming, crop diversification and rotation, use of indigenous and resilient crop varieties, integrated pest management, livestock integration, water harvesting and conservation, soil conservation techniques and watershed management. Such robust and low-regret agriculture-focused adaptation measures have strong potential for managing the impacts of glacier and cryosphere melt (Alfthan et al., 2018; Adler et al., 2022)

■ Sustainable and integrated water resources management: Sustainable watermanagement practices for mountain areas include rainwater harvesting, mountain spring rejuvenation and protection, wetland restoration, irrigation system infrastructure and efficiency improvements, as well as checking dams and percolation tanks/ponds to increase water storage and infiltration (Hock et al., 2019; Adler et al., 2022). Recent research in high mountainenvironments highlights that groundwater is increasingly understood to represent an important water source for streams, particularly during the dry season. Groundwater may therefore provide some resilience, at least temporarily, to glacier and cryosphere melt (Somers and McKenzie, 2020). Initiatives to grow ice in the winter through Artificial glaciers and ice stupas to augment early meltwater flows in the spring have also been attempted, with some success at small/local scales (UNESCO, 2025). Multistakeholder planning mechanisms such as National Water Roadmaps could be a way to support planning and implementation of Integrated and sustainable watermanagement.

■ Integrated land-use planning: Promote integrated land-use planning(ILUP) as a mechanism to ensure balanced, efficient and sustainable use of natural resources across landscapes, fostering complementarity between mountain and lowland areas and among different sectoral land uses, including agriculture, forestry and water management. In line with the FAO Guidelines for Integrated Land Use Planning, countries are encouraged to apply ILUP principles to coordinate cross-sectoral planning, optimize land and water use and harmonize ecological, social and economic objectives at multiple governance levels. 

■ Reducing greenhouse gas concentrations: Climate change mitigation inmountain regions can be supported through reforestation and wetland conservation, such as peatland restoration, as these areas offer substantial carbon storage and sequestration potential, with approximately 40 percent of mountain area covered by forests (FAO and UNEP, 2020; Adler et al., 2022). In addition to storing carbon, mountain forests help to regulate water cycles, reduce surface runoff, stabilize slopes and limit soil erosion.