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Challenges to materials for local glacier conservation

Nature Water volume 3, pages 251–255 (2025)Cite this article

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Glaciers, especially the small/local ones, are rapidly melting and disappearing due to their heightened sensitivity to climate change. A holistic understanding of the key criteria and fundamental challenges in developing materials for local glacier conservation is urgently needed, coupled with a call for interdisciplinary collaboration to effectively address the pressing issue of local glacier retreat.

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Fig. 1: Materials for glacier conservation.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the micro-fabrication centre at the National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures (NLSSM) for the technical support. J.Z. acknowledges the support from the XPLORER PRIZE. We also express our gratitude to S. Huang, F. Zhang, and all of the support and assistance from the Dagu Glacier Administration Bureau. This work was jointly supported by the National Key Research and Development Programme of China (2022YFA1404704, 2020YFA0406104), National Natural Science Foundation of China (52372197, 51925204, and 52002168), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20231540), the Excellent Research Programme of Nanjing University (ZYJH005), Jiangsu Funding Program for Excellent Postdoctoral Talent (2023ZB732), Research Foundation of Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling (14380214), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (021314380184, 021314380208, 021314380190, 021314380140, and 021314380150), and State Key Laboratory of New Textile Materials and Advanced Processing Technologies (Wuhan Textile University, FZ2022011).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Ningning Cao, Haowen Chi.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, P.R. China

    Ningning Cao, Haowen Chi, Bin Zhu & Jia Zhu

  2. College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, P.R. China

    Ningning Cao, Haowen Chi, Bin Zhu & Jia Zhu

  3. Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling, Nanjing University, Nanjing, P.R. China

    Ningning Cao, Haowen Chi, Bin Zhu & Jia Zhu

  4. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials, Nanjing University, Nanjing, P.R. China

    Ningning Cao, Haowen Chi, Bin Zhu & Jia Zhu

  5. School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, P.R. China

    Hongxi Pang & Changqing Ke

  6. School of Ecology and Environmental Science, Yunnan University, Kunming, P.R. China

    Xiaowei Zhang

  7. MOE Key Laboratory of Surficial Geochemistry, Nanjing University, Nanjing, P.R. China

    Jun Chen

  8. School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, P.R. China

    Jun Chen

Authors
  1. Ningning Cao
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  2. Haowen Chi
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  3. Bin Zhu
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  4. Hongxi Pang
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  5. Changqing Ke
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  6. Xiaowei Zhang
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  7. Jun Chen
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  8. Jia Zhu
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Bin Zhu or Jia Zhu.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Water thanks Po-Chun Hsu and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Cao, N., Chi, H., Zhu, B. et al. Challenges to materials for local glacier conservation. Nat Water 3, 251–255 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-025-00387-x

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