Martin Beniston, from the University of Fribourg’s Geography institute, explained on Wednesday that Swiss glaciers are the country’s water reservoirs in the sense that they feed rivers during the driest periods of the year, i.e. the end of summer and early autumn.If global warming continues at its current pace, 3/4 of Switzerland’s glaciers will no longer exist by the year 2050, according to a European report. The geographer warns that farmers in certain parts of the country as well as mountain hydroelectric dams could face water shortages. Beniston also highlights what he considers to be the important emotional impact related to glaciers: the expert argues that the country’s white-capped mountains are an important tourist attraction. The European Environmental Agency published a report on Tuesday that claimed that the average European temperature had increased by 0.95 degrees in the twentieth century, and that the increase was expected to keep rising. Some experts claim it could jump another 6 degrees in the next hundred years.

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