Mongolia

Snow Leopard Habitat in Mongolia

There are two snow leopard landscapes in Mongolia. The South Gobi landscape, located in the southern part of the country, has 68,000 km2 of habitat located almost entirely in one large, connected mosaic.

The South Gobi landscape consists of a vast mosaic of rugged, elevated 'core' habitat areas interspersed by more homogenous, flat areas that snow leopards move across.

Potential Snow Leopard Habitat

Good Habitat

Fair Habitat

Conection Habitat

Human Influence and Protected Areas

Key threats to snow leopards

Conservation strategies that involve people are key, since much of the core snow leopard habitat in this landscape is affected by some level of human impact.

Leaflet | Tiles © Esri — Source: Esri, i-cubed, USDA, USGS, AEX, GeoEye, Getmapping, Aerogrid, IGN, IGP, UPR-EGP, and the GIS User Community
Protected areas

Protected Areas cover about 33% of key snow leopard habitats in the South Gobi Landscape.

Some core and movement areas remain unprotected, particularly in the eastern portion of the landscape between the two protected areas, circled below.

Water & Climate Change

Temperatures are expected to increase by 2.0-3.3 ºC degrees by mid-century, with slight increases in rainfall in June, July and August, the wettest months of the year. Warming is projected to yield a longer growing season and a changing freeze-thaw cycle, resulting in slope instability of permafrost areas no longer above the frost line and potential changes to the productivity of grassland systems.

* Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research, Earth Institute. 2017. Climate Change in the Snow Leopard Landscapes of Asia's High Mountains

Alpine shift

Snow leopards of the South Gobi landscape may be particularly vulnerable to climate change. If current emmisions trends continue, an enormous amount of snow leopard habitat in this landscape could be lost. According to this model, areas depicted in pink would no longer be suitable for snow leopards in the future.

The most resilient area of the landscape, according to this model, is the northwest area of the landscape surrounding Ix Bogd Uul National Conservation Park.

Climate envelope suitability 2000-2080

Projected lossSnow Leopard Habitat

Annual precipitation

Precipitation map illustrates the role that the mountain ranges play in feeding the intermittent streams and groundwater recharge.

There is very high rainfall variability year to year in this very arid area, so this map is only an example of how water flows from the mountains.

Local Runoff
0 mm+250 mm

Freezeline Shift

Around the mountain ranges, areas will loose up to two months of winter under projected climate change. The mountaintops themselves will not loose any duration in winter; they seem to be too cold to thaw, even under increased temperatures.

Calendar months of freeze loss

1 month 2 month

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