From watertowers of mankind to livelihood strategies of mountain dwellers: approaches and perspectives for high mountain research.

The history of the discipline of high mountain research is reflected in the approaches of empirical investigations and by focussing on regions. The pressing research questions of our time increasingly require multi- or interdisciplinary co-operation, especially in situations where the theme is one of the deteriorating living conditions of the high mountain population with fewer resources in an environment fraught with risks. Different methods of approach of particular sub-disciplines present a fundamental problem of co-operation among the natural and the social sciences. In spite of these structural differences and incongruent theoretical approaches, common thematic areas occur in key questions concerning relations between man and his environment. Some problem areas can no longer be adequately tackled without interdisciplinary co-operation. This common purpose permits the identification of research areas which take development problems in high mountain areas of the Third World as their theme. Taking into account internationally applied indicators for the appraisal of the level of development, key parameters emerge which prove to be of two-fold relevance: they provide a potential set of instruments for the assessment of regional disparities, as well as a future orientation for the approach to the problems. This allows development deficits and distributional inequalities in peripheral regions to be established for several sectors. Working with this kind of projection onto high mountain societies, a need for interdisciplinary action is identified in the following branches: settlement area and population, economy and nutrition, resource manangement and energy supply. The necessary methodological instruments for the identification of development problems are available, and with appropriate application they offer the opportunity of supra-regional comparison. The example of water utilisation in arid high mountain regions serves to demonstrate the approach.