No Water, No Food – Glacier Loss Threats to US and Chinese Agriculture

The Wilson Center

The panelists from this event who have climbed countless mountains together, will share their experience studying climate impacts in the Third Pole and discuss the glacier-food nexus in the United States and China. The nearly $14 billion of fruit, grain, potatoes, and hops grown in Washington, Oregon and Idaho are all irrigated by melt water from glaciers. The glacier-fed cotton and grain fields of northwest China are the most vulnerable in the face of climate change. Maintaining or expanding crops in these regions may be unsustainable with the loss of glaciers driving water scarcity.