On the 25th anniversary of the publication of the Atlas of the world's snow and ice resources

Marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the World Atlas of Snow and Ice Resources, Kotlyakov recounts its conception, compilation, and publication. The project arose from the need to organize International Geophysical Year materials and represent global snow and ice phenomena together with their environmental conditions. Approximately 300 specialists worked on it between 1976 and 1993 with support from the USSR Academy of Sciences and UNESCO. An editorial statute, annual seminars, and a 1977 expedition to the Pamirs coordinated the work. Compilation combined ground observations, inventories, hydrometeorological records, calculated data, and specially organized cosmonaut observations. The maps covered glaciers, snow cover, avalanches, relief, climate, glacier runoff, and human activities, with shared indicators used to coordinate thematic and regional content. Financial and production difficulties following the dissolution of the Soviet Union were addressed through Russian Academy of Sciences funding and revenue from another atlas publication. Publication originals were prepared in Kyiv and the maps printed in Minsk. Published in 1997, the complete set comprised five books. The article records the award of the Russian State Prize in Science and Technology in 2001 and the release of an electronic version in 2015. The author argues that the atlas retains research value through its integrated record of snow, ice, and their environmental relationships during the second half of the twentieth century.