Argentina enacted a new law that protects the country’s glaciers, in a global context where climate change threatens the large bodies of ice and there are risks of different polluting activities.

The law, enacted on September 30, aims to preserve the glaciers as “strategic reserves of water for human consumption, for agriculture and as suppliers of water to recharge basins, for the protection of biodiversity ; as a source of scientific and tourist attraction.”

The legislation also establishes the creation of the “National Inventory of Glaciers”. It will be updated every five years, and verify the changes on the surfaces of glaciers and periglacial.

The “periglacial environment” is the high mountain area, with frozen soil, that acts as regulator of water resources.

Researchers at the Argentine Institute of Snow Research, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences will have the task to disclose necessary information to control and monitor all glaciers and periglacial areas that act as water reserves.