ABSTRACT
In many parts of the world deliberate measurements of the fluctuations of glacier fronts and mass balances have started only recently. Historical records arc sparse, so the data available are very uneven in amount and quality. Of the first three IAHS/Unesco volumes published on the fluctuations of glaciers (Kasser 1967, 1973, Müller 1977), the first contained only European material and even the third had data for only one Himalayan glacier, yet the Himalaya contain by far the most substantial area of ice outside the arctic and antarctic regions, and variations in the volume of glacier runoff there are directly important to the economy of densely settled, irrigated areas adjacent to the mountain chain. Regional coverage was further improved in the fourth volume (Haeberli 1985) but it still contained data for only seventeen glaciers in the whole of China, compared with 120 in Austria. By the time the fifth volume appeared (Haeberli et al. 1993) the Chinese coverage had been reduced to ten glaciers, but reports on ten Indian and seven Nepalese glaciers were included, in addition to eighty-two from the USSR. The sixth volume contained data on frontal variations of ten glaciers in China, six in Pakistan, four in India and seven in Nepal. With the possible exception of China, European historical records are more plentiful and more informative than those of other continents; in consequence, elsewhere greater reliance inevitably has to be placed on moraine dating.
