Distributed Buffer Resilience

DISCLAIMER — Two Confidence Tiers, No Framework Bridge

Why no UTAC/CREP/AFET bridge: not only because the cited literature already provides the necessary quantitative structure -- a deliberate choice. This project's highly speculative AFET/UTAC experiments must never stand in the way of climate/ecology topics being accessible and usable to people who don't work inside that construct and aren't looking for renormalization groups. Real, checkable science, without the burden of an unproven framework. See PACKAGE_REGISTRY.md's "Why no UTAC/CREP/AFET bridge in the climate/ecology series" (2026-08-31) in the GenesisAeon workspace root for the full canonical note.

Status: Core = real, independently re-verified science. Optional = this ecosystem's own discretization of a source document's proposed formula, not a peer-reviewed metric. NO UTAC/CREP/AFET bridge.

Core tier — real, independently re-verified 2026-08-14

Every figure below was checked directly against the paper (DOI lookup or publisher/press summary) on 2026-08-14.

• van Tiel, Huss, Zappa, Jonas & Farinotti (2026), HESS 30,
• 23-43, DOI: 10.5194/hess-30-23-2026 — the strongest empirical anchor
• in this package series. 88 glacierized Swiss catchments; 2022 mass
• loss ~6% of remaining volume; glacier melt still substantially
• buffered the 2022 drought's precipitation/snowmelt deficits, while
• absolute summer meltwater volume was already below the comparable
• 2003 extreme in roughly two-thirds of catchments. The buffer works
• and its capacity is eroding, simultaneously, already observed.
• Farinotti, Pistocchi & Huss (2016), ERL 11(5), 054022, DOI:
• 10.1088/1748-9326/11/5/054022 — the ~65% reservoir-strategy ceiling
• on Alpine summer-runoff-CHANGE compensation, re

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distributed-buffer-resilience-utac

GenesisAeon Package 103 — distributed hydrological/ecosystem buffer resilience for deglacierizing catchments. Companion to glacier-buffer-utac (P99, the loss) and glacier-buffer-replacement-utac (P100, technical replacement). Deliberately has no UTAC/CREP/AFET bridge — see DISCLAIMER.md.

For a plain-language explanation of the same topic (German, no jargon, written for general audiences), see WHITEPAPER.md.

The core idea

A single storage type can't replace a glacier. What actually buffers a deglacierizing catchment is a portfolio of reservoirs, groundwater, wetlands, snow, and demand management, each with a different response time — not one component sized to do the whole job.

Two explicit confidence tiers

• Core (drought_buffer, storage_portfolio, water_towers,
• ecosystem_services): real, peer-reviewed findings independently
• re-verified 2026-08-14.
• Optional / speculative (gbr): a ratio-style score this
• ecosystem constructed from a source document's own proposed formula
• — not a published metric. Always exposed with
• GBR_NOT_PEER_REVIEWED_WARNING.

What's real here (core)

• van Tiel et al. (2026, HESS)* — the strongest empirical anchor
• in the whole P99–P103 series: during the extreme 2022 Swiss drought,
• glacier melt across 88 catchments still substantially buffered
• precipitation/snowmelt deficits — yet absolute summer meltwater
• volume was already lower than 2003 in roughly two-thirds of studied
• catchments. The buffer works AND its capacity is eroding, at the
• same time, already observed, not projected.
• Farinotti et al. (2016, ERL)* — the ~65% Alpine reservoir
• summer-deficit ceiling, correctly scoped as a specific, regional,
• scenario-bound estimate (not a universal constant — see
• FARINOTTI_2016_SCOPE_NOTE).
• Farinotti et al. (2019, Nature)* — global theoretical
• ice-free-basin storage potential (875±260 km³ across ~185,000
• glaciers), with only ~40% (355 km³) judged realistically suitable
• after a first-pass screen.
• Pritchard (2017, Nature) and *Immerzeel et al. (2020,
• Nature)** — glaciers as a disproportionate drought buffer, and the
• Water Tower Index ranking mountain water systems by importance AND
• vulnerability (1.9 billion people dependent globally).
• Velasquez Casallas et al. (2025, Ecosystem Services)* — a
• systematic review finding postglacial ecosystem services can
• increase, but heterogeneously, with real trade-offs — never assume a
• Nature-based Solution is hydrologically positive purely from its
• label. `nbs_effect_is_guaranteed_positi

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