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Applicability of Alp Inspection Reports for the Reconstruction of Land-Use and Mass Wasting History in the Ursern Valley, Switzerland
Journal
Die Erde
Volume
141
Number
4
Pages / Article-Number
301-319
Keywords
Mass wasting history, Mountain environment, Agriculture archives
Abstract
Changes in land use and climate can increase landscape susceptibility for mass wasting. This study illustrates a method aimed at reconstructing landscape susceptibility for mass wasting in the Ursern Valley, Switzerland, based on an analysis of alp inspection reports of the years 1950-2000. The yearly reports were written by farmers commissioned to supervise pasture use and condition on the communal land. The analysis offers the possibility to reconstruct mass wasting history, its patterns in time and space as well as its determining factors. Preliminary results show that mass wasting frequency increased since 1970 and that the recorded events are not distributed uniformly in time and space, but concentrated on geologically sensitive slopes which experienced an increase in grazing intensity.
