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CIRCLE-2
Climate Change
and Mountain Areas
Climate Change Impacts and Response Options in Mountainous Areas
An overview of the CIRCLE-Mountain
Research Projects (2010-2013)
CIRCLE-2
Climate Change
and
Mountain Areas
Climate Change Impacts and Response Options in
Mountainous Areas
Introduction2
About CIRCLE MOUNTain
4
ARNICA6
ChangingRISKS11
CAMELEON15
EURAS-CLIMPACT18
Picture 1: P
asterze Glacier in Austria (source: Markus Leitner, EAA)
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Climate Change and Mountain Areas
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
1
The ERA-Net
CIRCLE-2
Introduction
Mountains are an important part of
the global system. Because of their
vertical extent, climate varies with
elevation and thus differs from those
in adjacent lowland areas. Their
verticality also generates habitat
and species diversity over short
horizontal distances.
Undoubtedly, global change and
climate change in particular may
change the capacity of mountain
landscapes to generate wealth and
to provide livelihood for resident
populations and for distant but
nonetheless dependant populations.
Such impacts will add further
environmental pressures on both
social and natural systems in these
regions, stressing the need to
promptly conduct proactive climate
adaptation plans.
Due to its transnational relevance,
climate change response policies in
mountainous areas must emphasis
multilateral research efforts that are
able to include the biophysical, social,
cultural and economic aspects of
these regions. Research on climate
adaptation in these areas, including
its socio-economic aspects, are
thus of prime interest for several
European countries with relevant
mountainous systems.
Mountains cover 36% of Europe’s
area and are home to 17% of the
continent’s population. Both mountain
populations and the far greater
numbers of people that are living
2
outside of mountain areas, need
to be considered, when projecting
future climate conditions and
evaluating climate change impacts,
vulnerability and adaptation.
Europe´s population is dependent
on mountain resources like “water
towers” and ecosystem services
and thus are affected by changes
deriving from climate change in
mountain (e.g. river discharges,
mountains as tourism destinations).
According to the recent IPCC
Special Report on Managing the
Risks of Extreme Events and
Disasters to Advance Climate Change
Adaptation (SREX, 2012) “there is
high confidence that changes in
heat waves, glacial retreat, and/or
permafrost degradation will affect
high mountain phenomena such
as slope instabilities, movements
of mass, and glacial lake outburst
floods. There is also high confidence
that changes in heavy precipitation
will affect landslides in some
regions.” “There is low confidence
regarding future locations and timing
of large rock avalanches, as these
depend on local geological conditions
and other non-climatic factors.”
Picture 2: Mountain in the Pyrenees
(source: Richard Martin, Catalan Government)
Picture 3: Innsbruck mountain
(source: Markus Leitner, EAA)
MOUNTAIN AREAS
are unique
Also “There is very high confidence
that, during the last decade, most
ice was lost from glaciers in Alaska,
the Canadian Arctic, the periphery
of the Greenland ice sheet, the
Southern Andes and the Asian
mountains. Together these areas
account for more than 80% of the
total ice loss (IPCC AR5, 2013)”.
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
Box 1
From 2004-2009, and from 2009-2014, partners of CIRCLE (Climate
Impact Research & Response Coordination for a Larger Europe) and
CIRCLE-2, respectively, have collaborated to fund research and share
knowledge on climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation
and the promotion of long-term cooperation among national and
regional climate change programmes in Europe. The partners have
funded or are funding projects or programmes of varying size at
the national level (see CIRCLE-2 Infobase http://www.circle-era.
eu/np4/10) and have, through competitive joint calls, supported a
number of transnational projects for the Nordic, Mountainous and
Mediterranean areas, the latter including partners from Northern
Africa (see http://www.circle-era.eu/np4/Joint_Initiatives).
The objective is to develop and strengthen the coordination of national
and regional research programmes and help reduce fragmentation
across the European Research Area (ERA). Under the ERA-NET
scheme, programme ‘owners’ (typically ministries or regional
authorities) and ‘managers’ (typically research councils or other
research agencies) can identify research programmes they wish to
coordinate or open up and develop joint activities including the support
of joint calls for transnational projects. Having evolved from a focus
on climate impacts to climate adaptation, CIRCLE-2 comprises 34
institutions from 23 countries (http://www.circle-era.eu/np4/home.
html) that work together to:
•
support a common research agenda and joint programming
foresight activities helping to structure a common language
and framework for policy relevant adaptation research;
•
fund adaptation research though transnational joint
calls and other joint activities contributing to a durable
cooperation between European climate research
programmes and their funders;
•
make available existing knowledge on adaptation and
foster the production of research along identified needs
contributing to the development of a European knowledge
base on climate change.
Climate Change and Mountain
ClimateAreas
Change and Mountain Areas
3
About CIRCLE MOUNTain
Created in 2002 by the European Commission
(EC), the ERA-Net (European Research Area
Networks) mechanism has played a major
role in connecting European research centres:
this allows for funders of research projects
at the national level to coordinate research on
the European scale and to generate common
calls for projects. The ERA-Net CIRCLE
(Climate Impact Research and response
Coordination for a Larger Europe) is a
European network dedicated to coordinating
research on adaptation to climate change
(for more detail, see page 3). It operates
based on geo-thematic sub-networks — the
Mediterranean region, the Nordic region, and
mountainous region — for which knowledge
of the various impacts resulting from climate
change and the possible adaptation solutions
requires an integrated and shared approach.
Figure 1: CIRCLE-2 network of 34 partner institutions from 23 different countries
Four calls for research projects have been
launched within the CIRCLE framework,
corresponding to the three geo-thematic groups:
“Water resource management in
Mediterranean coastal areas”, 2007
“The Consequences of climate change for policy
development in the Nordic countries”, 2007
“Adaptation in Mountainous regions”, 2009
“Adaptation to Climate Change from a
natural and social science perspective:
Water in coastal Mediterranean areas”, 2013 CIRCLE-2 MOUNTain projects
In 2009, CIRCLE-2 MOUNTain partners
launched the third CIRCLE joint call
dedicated to “Climate change impacts
(natural and anthropogenic factors) and
response options in mountainous areas”.
4
CIRCLE-2 MOUNTain supported the
assessment of needs related to climate
change and adaptation in countries with
strong ties to mountain systems, promoting
research cooperation in scientific and policy
areas in and around Europe. CIRCLE-2
MOUNTain was supported by research
funding organisations from Austria,
France, Sweden and Spain.
As visualised on the map (Figure 2),
the following four projects successfully
fulfilled their aims:
Figure 2: CIRCLE-2 MOUNTain projects and test sites (source: Markus Leitner, EAA)
Funding was provided by the following funders:
• Two projects worked on landslide risks,
namely ARNICA and ChangingRISKS
• One focused on mountain ecosystems,
namely CAMELEON
• One project focused on glacier hazards,
namely EURAS-CLIMPACT
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
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ARNICA
ARNICA - Assessment of Risks
on transportation Networks
resulting from slope Instability
and Climate change in the Alps.
Key words
Debris flow shallow landslides,
future climate change,
transportation network, Alps.
Partnership
Wegener Center for Climate and
Global Change, University of Graz
(Austria); Padova University (Italy);
Dendrolab (Switzerland); leader
LGP CNRS (France)
Budget
€ 300.000
Funders
The Federal Ministry of Science
and Research (BMWF, Austria)
and Ministry for Ecology,
Sustainable Development and
Energy (MEDDE, France)
The general objective was to determine the potential impacts of future
climate change on debris flows/landslides (DF) activity in the Alps.
Moreover linear infrastructures are particularly vulnerable to such natural
hazard. They are an essential component of the economic activity of these
mountainous areas and transborder exchanges, which gives a highly
strategic character to them. The vulnerability of the networks was also
addressed in the project.
As input for the analysis of future natural hazards activity, localized climate
scenarios in the study regions for parameters triggering DF were required.
The analysis conducted by Graz University (Austria) focused on heavy
precipitation events exceeding a certain threshold per day (e.g., 10 mm/day).
In addition, for precipitation events of different duration (one to three days)
the role of temperature has been investigated in order to separate rain from
snowfall. 24 regional climate simulations (RCSs) for the 21st century served
as basis for the analysis. All simulations are based on the A1B emission
scenario. An empirical-statistical downscaling and error-correction method
(quantile mapping) has been applied on a daily scale to improve the skill of
the RC Models in representing local climate at station scale. As one result
it could be demonstrated that quantile mapping is able to significantly
improve the quality of the simulation of extreme precipitation. After error
correction, the entire ensemble of 24 simulations was used to estimate
the bandwidth of possible future climate. Statistics of the climate change
signals are assessed to time horizon of close future (2050) and far future
(2100). Results show in the different regions that potentially triggering
precipitation events are expected to become more frequent in most
seasons, except in July and August. However, also in the summer
months the frequency of very intense precipitation events (above 30 mm/
day) should increase at some stations. In addition summer temperature
should increase as well.
LGP aimed to document the impacts of current and future climate change
on DF occurrence in the French Alps and to document the vulnerability
of national network related to such process. To this end, LGP used a
DF database constituted by local stakeholders from historical archives
composed of 565 debris flow events Flow events since the spring of 1970,
in the north and south of the French Alps.
Figure 3: Impacted roads by debris flows during
the last decades in the French Alps.
Figure 4, Figure 5, Figure 6, Figure 7:
Rif Blanc debris flow event on 11th of June
2012 that destroyed the main road from
Grenoble to Briançon. 5) debris flow catchment, 6) impacts on the road which was
partly closed during several days, 7) debris
flow volume estimated from MassMov 2D,
8) regional loss of accessibility.
Climatic causes of debris flow events inter-annual variability were explored.
Results revealed distinct climatic variables responsible for changes in
the number of debris flows per year in the two regions. The influence of
temperature and extreme precipitation changes from the north to the
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Climate Change and Mountain Areas
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
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south of the French Alps. An innovative
model was also developed to estimate the
most influent among geomorphic or climatic
variables in debris flow activity. This model
showed that debris flow occurrence probability
in the French Alps depends mainly on
climatic variables compared with geomorphic
characteristics as lithology land cover or land
use for instance. Regardless of the RCS used,
in the two regions a significant increase in
the annual probability of debris flows was
predicted in both the near and far future.
from Grenoble to Briançon was conducted
in collaboration with the municipalities’
mayors, the regional Council, the Red Cross,
touristic companies, and the police, which
revealed a very accurate process but different
risk perceptions.
The contribution of University of Padova
was focused on two main topics:
• The analysis of slope stability conditions
for shallow landslides under a wide range
of precipitation regime with regard to
present and future scenarios, in order
to assess the effect of changes in
precipitation on stability conditions,
• The integration of the landslide susceptibility
evaluation within a general concept of
transport vulnerability assessment based
on the network analysis in collaboration
with stakeholders.
Figure 8: D
ebris flow probability in the French Alps
in the 2050s (close) and the 2100s (far)
from 24 climate simulations.
Results of this regional analysis and a
frequency- run out analysis for specific
events using a deterministic model have
been transferred to the stakeholders and
decision makers for operational purposes.
Maps of impacted roads and related territorial
accessibility were constituted for the whole
French Alps considering different disturbed
scenarios and given to local decision makers.
A short movie devoted to the awareness of
local decision makers and tourists focused on
the impacts of debris flows on road network.
A post crisis management analysis based on
a case event that impacted the regional road
8
The reference case study is represented
by a set of study basins (2-10 km2 wide) in
Southern Tyrol, located in the Eastern Italian
Alps. The analysis was based on a coupled
hydrological-stability model to study the
control on shallow landslides in different
precipitation regimes. RCSs were used as a
reference. Results show a step increase in
susceptibility to shallow landslides in the fall
season but a decrease in summer season.
This is mainly due to the increase of the
percentage of liquid precipitation for the
storms and a moisture decrease respectively.
Italian case
study:
Increase
of shallow
landsliding in
fall, decrease
in summer
As a result, the changing DF regime may
have a seasonally differentiated impact on the
transport network failure probability, which
results in different system vulnerability, given
the different kind and volume of traffic. It was
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
Swiss case
study:
Debris flow
season is
much longer.
Possible
increase
in overall
magnitude
shown that the moisture profile at the regional
level at the end of the summer months has
a critical effect on road and railway network
failure, both in terms of expected failure
timing and probability of failure. Further, it is
seen that, with changing climate, the system
reliability is likely to decrease during the fall
season due to the increased probability of
liquid storms at high altitude in basins directly
connected with the study transportation
network. On the contrary, the reliability during
the summer months is increased, due to the
decreased probability of landslide triggering
storms. These results were discussed and
analysed together with the stakeholders
and local government representatives,
considering the potential impact in terms of
risk assessment and risk communication.
The role of different methodologies to mitigate
the failure risk was considered, including
structural and non-structural approaches.
favourable for the release of debris flows
will likely decrease, especially in summer.
Dendrolab developed a database of past
debris-flow activity in the Zermatt Valley.
Through the linkage of a dense and highly
resolved database of debris flows with
meteorological records dating back to AD
1864, 150 years of rainstorms that triggered
debris flows have been reconstructed. Results
show that the debris-flow season at these
high-altitude sites now is much longer (May
to October) than it used to be in the late
nineteenth century when activity was limited
to June–September. Research also focused
on climate change impacts on the debris
flows. Based on the current understanding of
debris flows and their reaction to rainfalls, one
might expect only slight changes in the overall
frequency of events, but possibly an increase
in the overall magnitude of debris flows due
to larger sediment availability. In the late 21st
century, the number of days with conditions
The project conducted in different alpine
regions revealed that risk perception induced
by debris flows differs from other natural
hazards such as floods. Except for a few
sites regularly affected, it is not perceived as
having strong impacts unlike floods probably
because these impacts have a reduced spatial
extent. However a lot of roads are impacted by
this process with sometimes very important
economic consequences and our study
demonstrated that the Alpine road network
is vulnerable. In the three countries analyses
were conducted with stakeholders to reduce
risk for specific catchment areas. However, at
local scale it is still very difficult to estimate
a debris flow occurrence probability because
of lack of precipitation measurements at
hourly time scale, and lack of observation of
debris flow volume to determine an accurate
frequency-magnitude relationship.
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
Results on debris flow occurrence, frequency
and reach of events have been used by
stakeholders and decision makers for
operational purposes. In particular, and in
view of the imminent risks of debris flows
in several of the torrents in the Zermatt
valley, Dendrolab.ch has participated in
discussions with local communities, state
agencies and the Swiss Federal Office for the
Environment to perform cost-benefit analyses
for the protection of the villages and the
transportation network. The results of Arnica
will indeed have consequences on future
land-use planning and the operation of railway
and road operations, and were used to develop
and position structural and non-structural
decisions with the best balance between
prevention and rehabilitation.
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ChangingRISKS
Variables responsible for debris flow and
shallow landslides triggering differ according
to the spatial and temporal scale considered.
At a daily time scale the triggering depends
mainly on extreme rainy events which
threshold changes from place to place and
from the date of the last debris flow event.
Years with numerous debris flows depends
also on temperatures. Regardless of the
climate model used, a significant increase in
the probability of debris flows occurrence or
run out is predicted in both the near future
and in the distant future for the different
regions. This is because potentially triggering
conditions are expected to become more
frequent. Possible seasonal shifts of high
debris flow activity may also be expected.
Publications
Pavlova, I., Jomelli, V., Grancher, D., Brunstein,
D., Martin, E. Déqué, M., (2013). Debris Flow
activity related to current climate conditions
in the French Alps: a regional investigation
based on Safran reanalyzed data. (accepted).
Jomelli, V. (2012). Alpine debris flows.
Science and Technology, 4, 162-164.
Stoffel, M., Mendlik, T., SchneuwlyBollschweiler, M., Gobiet, A., In press. Possible
impacts of climate change on debris-flow
activity in the Swiss Alps. Climatic Change.
doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0993-z.
Borga, M., 2013: Forecasting, early warning
and event management: non-structural
protection measures for flash floods and
debris flows. In: Dating Torrential Processes
on Fans and Cones, 2013. Springer eds.
ISBN: 978-94-007-4335-9, 47, 211-224.
Landslides across the Alpine countries are recognized by practitioners,
politicians and scientists as having a major socio-economic impact, and
may represent a significant risk for the population and the properties in
particular locations. Even if many scientific advances have been made
in numerous fields of landslide research in the last 10 years, there is no
consensus reached on an integrated concept and methodology for landslide
risk assessment adaptable to a large range of climatic, environmental and
socio-economic conditions, applicable to perform scenario analysis taking
into account global changes (climate, land use, socio-economic development),
and directly connected to the practical demands of the stakeholders.
ChangingRISKS intended to develop an advanced understanding of how global
changes (related to both environmental and climate change as well as socioeconomic developments) would affect the temporal and spatial patterns of
landslide hazards and associated risks in two territories of the Alps, and how
these changes can be assessed, modelled and communicated (through mapping
procedures) to stakeholders. The project work is focused on two mountain
study areas located in France (Barcelonnette Basin, South East France) and
in Austria (Waidhofen/Ybbs, Lower Austria). From a scientific viewpoint the
main outcome was the development of a generic methodology for quantitative
landslide hazard, vulnerability and risk assessment taking into account changing
patterns in the conditioning factors. From a technical viewpoint, the main
outcome consisted in the setting up of reliable solutions for mapping landslide
susceptibility, hazard, vulnerability and risk in a quantitative framework, through
the development and implementation of a GIS-based experimentation and
demonstration platform.
The Barcelonnette basin (France) consists of a 350 km² area, situated in
the south-eastern part of France in the département Alpes-de-HauteProvence around the municipality of Barcelonnette. It is located in a
mountainous area, altitudes range from 1100m to 3100m a.s.l, and the lithology
consist mainly in black marls, sedimentary sheet thrusts and moraine deposits.
The Basin is located in the dry intra-Alpine zone, characterized by a mountain
climate with a marked interannual rainfall variability (735 ± 400 mm over the
period 1928-2010) and 130 days of freezing per year, a continental influence
with significant daily thermal amplitudes (> 20°) and a Mediterranean influence
with summer rainstorms yielding more than 50 mm.h-1 on occasion.
The actual land cover/use is the result of the presence of severe hydrogeomorphological processes in connection with important changes in
human activities in the last centuries with high deforestation rate and the
introduction of agricultural practices till the 18th century. In the 19th
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Climate Change and Mountain Areas
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
ChangingRISKS - Changing
pattern of landslide risks as
response to global changes
in mountain areas
Key words
rainfall-induced landslides,
global changes, mountains,
risk assessment, modeling
Partnership
CNRS, Institut de Physique du
Globe de Strasbourg (France);
CNRS, Laboratoire Image, Ville,
Environnement, Strasbourg
(France); University of Vienna –
Department of Geography and
Regional Research (Austria);
CSIC, Estacion Experimental
Aula Dei, Zaragoza (Spain)
Budget
€ 295.010
Funded by
The Ministry for Ecology,
Sustainable Development
and Energy (MEDDE, France)
and Ministry of Economy and
Competitiveness (MINECO, Spain)
11
From this time onwards landslides were
reported on a regular basis, however,
still always related to landslide damages.
century, reforestation and dam building for
torrent correction marked the landscape
as a result of landslide activities and
torrential events largely threatening the
human activities. After the 2nd World War,
urbanization and progressive agricultural
abandonment are the main drivers of
changes in the land cover and land use. As
a consequence, the recent development of
urbanization and tourism activities has led to
an intense use of previously unoccupied and
most of the time landslide susceptible slopes.
The landslide hazard is high in this area,
the slopes being notably affected by severe
gullying and both shallow and deep-seated
large landslides.
The municipality and district Waidhofen/Ybbs
is located in the south western part of Lower
Austria. The area comprises around 130
km2 and stretches from 356m to 1115m a.s.l.
Waidhofen/Ybbs has a population of 11.500
inhabitants. The yearly precipitation ranges
from 800mm in the northern part to around
2000mm in the southern part of the district.
The land cover in Waidhofen/Ybbs contains
mainly forest and agricultural areas. In the
southern part forest is prevalent whereas in
the northern part there is extensive grassland
and acreage. The district capital can be
regarded as a regional centre, according to
the spatial planning regulations in Austria.
The city itself is located in the central part
where the Ybbs formed a flood plain, which
enabled the small city to develop. The
lithology is composed of Limestone, Flysch,
the Klippenzone and Dolomite. The history
of natural hazards dates back to 1312 with
floods from the Ybbs River, which occurred
repeatedly over the past centuries. However
the first rock fall was reported as early as
1589. Additionally debris flows blocking
roads or rail tracks were also reported
regularly. Landslides were only reported
more recently in the archives. From the
1950s onwards, the building ground register
was started, where all events related to
earth science were collected and catalogued.
However, this register only includes events
that were reported due to caused damages.
12
Influences of climate change and land-use/
cover changes on landslide activity have been
analysed by different methods (statistical,
empirical and physically-based methods)
on the two test sites: the Barcelonnette
basin and the Waidhofen/Ybbs valley. The
changes in land use/cover have an influence
on landslide activity, as can be depicted in
the susceptibility analysis carried out in
Waidhoffen/Ybbs.
Concerning the changes induced by climate,
even if the sites present different contexts in
view of landslide causes (climate, landslide
sizes), the analyses show that climate change
is likely to induce similar trends in landslide
activity. Based on the IPCC A1B scenario and
on the resulting climate change scenario at
local scale, the different models predict a
very probable increase in landslide activity.
This change would materialize either as an
increase in the frequencies of landslides or
as an increase in surface of the potentially
unstable areas. However, these models
require precise data, and so climate models
should be adapted to such resolutions, like
in this study. The results differ from the
predictions provided by larger scale models.
These differences might be explained by the
finer calibration processes used for local
scale analysis and also to the finer climate
model used, which, for example, take into
account the influence of topography on
climate (mostly on precipitation). In order
to improve the analyses performed in this
study, several points would be interesting to
consider in further studies:
• Use of different assessment methods
at the different sites in order to improve
the robustness of the analyses;
Figure 9 & Figure 10: Land use and susceptibility modelling for the Austria study site.
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
Figure 11 & Figure 12: Potential Damage Index map produced for the
winter season for the French study site.
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
• Integration of other IPCC scenarios in
order to have a wider variety of potential
future climate;
13
CAMELEON
• Consideration of the future evolution of
the DEM and the lithology due to landslides
or to human interventions.
The comparisons of risk exposure among
the two study sites (for the actual and future
situation) have been carried out for assessing
landslide risk evolution with climate change
scenarios through the construction of
Potential Damage Index maps. The application
of the method depends on data availability
taking into account that if climate change
scenarios and land cover evolution scenarios
can be developed quite accurately, the
scenarios of population and human activity
evolution are rougher at such scales.
Even though, the two studies of landslide
risk assessment on the French and Austrian
sites seem to tend to a similar trend: an
increase of landslide risk. This increase in
risk is more or less important depending on
the considered sites and parameters. Due to
a high level of uncertainties on population and
traffic evolution scenarios, precautions need
to be taken with the figures. Regarding the
influence of hydrology and land use changes
on the factor of safety, a methodology has
been developed to obtain simplified and rapid
estimations of possible unstable slopes.
Further development would be the production
of abacus for a wide range of land use (and
associated vegetation) and then the analysis
of the impact of climate change through the
vegetation change.
In parallel, vulnerability analysis (physicaland
social vulnerability) of possible buildings
impacted by landslide displacements has
been developed. In order to be integrated
in risk evolution assessment of the studies,
this methodology needs to be adapted to all
categories of landslides. The risk evolution
would be thus a combination of hazard changes,
exposure changes and vulnerability changes.
14
Publications
Promper, C., Puissant, A., Malet, J.-P., Glade,
T. Spatiotemporal development of the land
cover as a basis for possible distribution of
elements at risk - Case study Waidhofen/Ybbs
(Austria). Applied Geography (submitted in
September 2013).
Puissant, A., Van Den Eeckhaut, M., Malet,
J.-P., Hervas, J. Maquaire, O. Regional-scale
semi-quantitative consequence analysis in
the Barcelonnette Region, Southern France.
Landslides, Journal of the International
Consortium on Landslides, 15p. (submitted
in January 2012).
Remaître, A., Malet, J.-P. Rainfall patterns
and climatic conditions associated to debris
flows and mudslides at different time scales.
A case study in the South French Alps.
Geomorphology, 18p. (submitted in January
2013).
Spickermann, A., Travelletti, J., Malet, J.P., van Asch, Th.W.J. A dynamic model to
quantify the development of slow-moving
landslides in clayey soils. Earth Surface
Processes and Landforms, 14p. (submitted in
October 2012).
Stumpf, A., Lachiche, N., Malet, J.-P., Kerle,
N., Puissant, A. 2013. Active learning in the
spatial domain for landslide mapping with
VHR optical images. IEEE Transactions
on Geosciences & Remote-Sensing, 21p.
(Accepted, in press).
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
The combination of climate and land use changes has triggered important
land cover mutations in European mountains over the last 50 years. These
landscape modifications may accelerate in the 21st century with the expected
climate change. The linkages between vegetation dynamics and primary
productivity of mountain ecosystems and their ability to mitigate carbon
emissions are still poorly understood. CAMELEON aimed to improve our
knowledge of the carbon cycling of mountain ecosystems, with the objectives:
• to understand how land use changes translate
into changes in plant functional diversity
• to model the carbon cycling in mountain ecosystems
at the landscape scale using detailed accounts on
climate forcing and plant functional diversity and
• to forecast the potential changes in the carbon
stocks and fluxes in mountain ecosystems.
Our project targets three long-term mountain research areas located in
the Eastern Pyrenees (Alinya valley, Spain), the South-Western Alps
(Vercors plateau, France) and the Eastern Alps (Stubai valley, Austria),
representing contrasting historical and climatic contexts.
Firstly, the project has allowed us to synthetize an unprecedented
dataset of climate and ecological data for the three targeted regions.
High resolution maps of historical land cover changes since 1950 were
developed. Stakeholders were directly involved in the research to define,
for each site, several land use change scenarios for the near future
(2030) based on different hypotheses about climate change and the socioeconomic development of each region, as example here, the Vercors
Plateau. A large set of eco-physiological data was also assembled
including CO2 flux measurements, functional traits and botanical surveys.
This provided a comprehensive assessment of the biodiversity patterns
and the ecosystem functioning of the mountain ecosystems.
CAMELEON - CArbon dynamics
in Mountain Ecosystems:
analyzing Landscape-scale
Effects Of aNthropogenic changes
Key words
climate and land use change,
carbon cycle, mountain ecosystems,
land management
Partnership
Laboratoire de Sciences du Climat et
de l’Environnement (LSCE, France),
Zone Atelier Alpes (CNRS, France);
NOVELTIS (France); Institute for
Ecology, University Innsbruck
(Austria); Centre Tecnològic Forestal
de Catalunya (Spain)
Budget
€ 389.289
Funded by
the Federal Ministry of Science
and Research (BMWF, Austria),
Ministry for Ecology, Sustainable
Development and Energy (MEDDE,
France) and Ministry of Economy and
Competitiveness (MINECO, Spain)
Series of simulations using the ORCHIDEE Terrestrial Ecosystem Model
(TEM) was conducted to estimate the past and future change in ecosystem
productivity and carbon mitigation potential, to understand what are the
main drivers (e.g. land use and climate change) of these changes; and to
estimate possible adaptation of land management to improve productivity
and carbon storage.
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
15
Figure 16 &
Figure 17: Evolution of
sustainable livestock
unit (LSU) and total
number of animals
for (16) Stubai and
(17) Vercors and
considering several
driving factors and
land use scenarios.
Figure 13: Change of forest cover in Vercors between 1950
and 2010 (red=reforestation, blue=deforestation).
Figure 14, Figure 15: Attribution of climate, CO2 and land use
changes on future carbon fluxes (Gross Primary Productivity,
Total Ecosystem Respiration, Net Ecosystem Exchange).
The ORCHIDEE model has been previously
calibrated for the three sites using remote
sensing data and in situ flux measurements.
The three sites exhibit contrasted responses.
For Stubai, we found a relatively large
increasing trend in productivity both for the
historical period and for the future. This
induces an increase of carbon storage,
even if the increase of productivity is partly
cancelled by the increase of soil respiration.
The opposite trend was found for Alinya, after
a productivity increase during the historical
period, there is an expected progressive
decrease due to increasing summer droughts
under climate change scenarios.
For Stubai, the first driver of productivity
increase is temperature, followed by the CO2
fertilization effect. For Alynia, on the contrary,
climate has a negative effect for Alinya mainly
driven by the decrease of precipitation. This
negative effect is partly compensated by the
positive effect of CO2. For Stubai, the increase
of productivity should allow the increase of
the animal production for more than 30%.
This led to a carbon lose after 2050. The
French Alps showed an intermediate response
with increasing productivity during historical
period and stabilization after 2050. Then the
soil carbon sink decreased progressively.
Climate effect on carbon cycling should
be counterbalanced by projected land use
changes that mainly consist in a decrease of
intensively managed (cut) grassland surfaces
and an extension of forested areas. For
Alinya, the projected increase of droughts in
the future should decrease the potential of
animal production. Nonetheless, the land use
trend since historical times in Alinya suggests
strong pasture abandonment and
As an example, Figures 14 and 15 show
the impact of climate, CO2 and land use on
simulated changes of the carbon fluxes for
the future for Stubai and Vercors.
16
A second set of simulation was conducted to
see how the grassland system can adapt to
the projected change in grassland productivity
in particular in term of sustainable animal
number that can be produced for each region.
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
thus increased forested area. For Vercors,
the system is more complex as animals are
only in the mountains during summer whereas
they stay in the La Crau plain (South of France)
during winter. As for Alinya, La Crau should
experience an increase of droughts.
This will limit the possible increase of animal
productivity, even if grassland productivity
should increase in Vercors. This situation
could be compensated by the increase of
the grazing season length in Vercors. Hence
current animal pressure could be maintained
for the future in this area.
The CAMELEON project was the first attempt
to provide reliable and comparative regionalscale simulations of carbon dynamics
in European mountain ecosystems that
incorporate our best ecological knowledge of
these biodiversity hot-spots. The project is
a milestone towards a better understanding
of climate and land use change impacts on
carbon cycle in European mountains.
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
Publications
Carlson, B. Z., C. Randin, I. Boulangeat,
S. Lavergne, W. Thuiller, and P. Choler.
/in press. Working toward Integrated Models
of Alpine Plant Distribution. Alpine Botany.
Carlson, B. Z., J. Renaud, P.-E. Biron,
and P. Choler. In press. Long-Term Modeling
of the Forest-Grassland Ecotone in the French
Alps: Implications for Pasture Management
and Conservation. Ecological Application.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/13-0910.1.
Vicca S., Bahn M., Estiarte M., Alberti G.,
Ambus P.; Arain M.A.; Beier C., Bentley
L., Borken W., Buchmann N., Collins S.;
de Dato G., Dukes J. et al. Submitted.
Can current moisture responses of soil
respiration be extrapolated into a future with
altered precipitation regimes? A synthesis
of precipitation manipulation experiments.
Submitted to Global Change Biology.
17
EURAS-CLIMPACT
EURAS-CLIMPACT - Impact
of climate change and related
glacier hazard and mitigation
strategies in the European Alps,
Swedish Lapland and the Tien
Shan Mountains, Central Asia
Key words
Climate data, hydrological
data, reanalysis data, statistical
downscaling, glacier evolution
runoff model, IPCC scenarios;
remote sensing, time series
analysis, surging glacier, glacier
lake outburst flood; mitigation
strategy, stakeholder meeting
Partnership
University of Vienna (Austria),
Central Institute for Meteorology
and Geodynamics (Austria),
Blekinge Institute of Technology
(Sweden), German Center for
Geosciences (Germany)
Figure 18:
Sonnblickkees: glacier
area in the years
2006,2025, 2035,
2050 (left)
and estimation of
the future lake
formation (right).
The objectives of the project were:
• to set-up an empiric downscaling-method
for regionalization of reanalysis data (NCEP)
and GCM model data in Europe,
• a simulation of glacier fluctuation for the time
period 1948-2010 for quantification of glacier
variations in Central Asia,
• to calculate changes of future glacier melt
and runoff during the 21st century,
• a geohazard assessment and proposal of
mitigation strategies to reduce the climate
induced georisks, and
Figure 19:
Adygine: glacier
area in the years
2006,2025, 2035,
2050 (left)
and estimation of
the future lake
formation (right).
• a close cooperation with stakeholders.
After a test phase of climate modelling based on reanalysis data and statistical
downscaling in the Austrian Alps this model was transferred to high-mountain
climatological stations in Central Asia for which mostly only limited time series of
precipitation and air temperature were available. Local climate data from these
stations was calculated using global reanalysis data of NCEP (1948-2012) and
global model data of ECHAM5 (2001-2050). The then calculated climate data at
local scale were used to drive GERM, the glacio-hydrological glacier evolution
runoff model. GERM was calibrated with known mass balance data, and validated
with local runoff data. Future glacier development was simulated for IPCC
scenarios A1B, A2 and B1 until 2050.
Figure 20:
Map of priority
regions for GLOF
studies in the
Kyrgyz Republic
Consequently since the end of the 1980s the glaciers of all underlying
investigation areas in the European Alps and in Central Asia retreated rapidly,
a process, which basically accelerated since LIA during the last 150 years.
Budget
€ 243.000
Funded by
The Federal Ministry of Science
and Research (BMWF, Austria), and
The Swedish Research Council for
Environment, Agricultural Sciences
and Spatial Planning, Sweden
(FORMAS, Sweden)
18
Climate warming increases glacier melt and reduces permafrost areas, which
result in significant environmental changes such as instable slopes or the
formation of glacier lakes, which can cause glacier lake outburst floods (GLOF),
in total increasing the geohazard potential in the near future. In 1996 the remote
Northern Inylchek Glacier in eastern Kirgizstan rapidly advanced by three
kilometres within two months only initiating a second GLOF this year. Time series
analysis of remote sensing data of glaciers in the Central Tien Shan revealed that
compared to the climate change induced glacier retreat simultaneously sudden
glacier advances occur, so called glacier surges, the cause of which is poorly
understood, and which make up an underestimated geo-risk.
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
It is well known that Central Asia is heavily
influenced by earthquakes and many slope
structures in the glaciated eastern central
Tien Shan were described as of neotectonic origin. The structural geologic, and
geomorphologic studies in the surroundings
of the Global Change Observatory “Gottfried
Merzbacher” led to the conclusion, however,
that multiple slope terraces along the
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
Inylchek Valley were of sedimentary origin,
not caused by earthquakes, and therefore
this geohazard potential was assessed by
far too high in this region.
Before, during and after EURAS-CLIMPACT,
contact with Kyrgyz stakeholders such as
the Kyrgyz Ministry of Emergency Situations
(MES), focused on information exchange
19
on glacier retreat, the potential increase of
climate induced and non-climate induced
geo-hazards, the implementation of data
driven early warning systems, on follow up
studies for concrete planning of mitigation
measures, and on their socioeconomic
implications.
The helicopter excursion and field work
during our 2012 Bishkek Worksop caused
many discussions between stakeholders
from the Austrian project group and
Kyrgyz ministries, National Academy of
Sciences, universities, and governmental
representatives as well as local people
suffering from the regular floods. The
following impressions give an idea of
the work on site in Kirgizstan.
Numerous discussions with international
colleagues at the Central Asian Institute of
Applied Geosciences (CAIAG), the National
Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences, institutes of
numerous universities, and several UNDP
offices on Disaster Risk Reduction in Slovakia,
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan finally led to
research cooperation between the European
Commission and Central Asia. GÉANT
and CAREN (Central Asian Research and
Education Network), respectively, which are
operated by DANTE (Delivering of Advanced
Network Technology to Europe) recently
announced the Vienna University project
EURASCLIMPACT as a case study of
pan-European Internet-network research.
Publications
LEBER, D. (2012): Hazard zonation and
contingency planning – standard tools
for reducing geohazard/flood risks in the
European Alps.- International Conference on
GLOF Risk Reduction “Reducing risks and
ensuring preparedness”, 5-7 December 2012,
Abstracts, p. 43, Paro, Bhutan.
HÄUSLER, H., KOPECNY, A. & LEBER, D.
(2013): The Northern Inylchek type of glacier
surge (Central Tien Shan, Kyrgyzstan).
HÄUSLER, H., KOPECNY, A. & LEBER, D.
(2013): Change detection of glaciers in the
Tien Shan (Kyrgyzstan).
KOPECNY, A. (2013): Geologische und
glazialgeomorphologische Untersuchungen
im Bereich des Inylchek Gletschers (Tien
Shan, Kirgisische Republik). Unveröffentlichte
Masterarbeit, Fakultät für Geowissenschaften,
Geographie und Astronomie (Department
für Umweltgeowissenschaften), Wien.
KOPECNY, A., NG, F., HÄUSLER, H. & LEBER,
D. (2013): Estimation of recent deposition
rates in a proglacial lake – example from the
Upper Lake Merzbacher, Central Tien Shan
(Kyrgyz Republic).
Figure 21 (following pages): EURAS-CLIMPACT field
work and stakeholder involvement in the Tien Shan
mountains in the Kyrgyz Republic
(source: Hermann Häusler, University Vienna)
20
The Adygine Glacier with its Proglacial lakes (source: Stefan Reisenhofer, ZAMG)
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
21
EURAS-CLIMPACT field work and stakeholder involvement in the Tien Shan
mountains in the Kyrgyz Republic (source: Hermann Häusler, University Vienna)
22
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
Climate Change and Mountain Areas
23
Colophon
This document should be cited as
Leitner, M., I. Auer, and M. Mojaisky (2014). Climate
Change impacts and response options in Mountain
areas. An overview of the CIRCLE-MOUNTain Research
Projects (2009-2013). Foundation of the Faculty of
Sciences, Lisbon, Portugal.
This document has been prepared thanks to funding
from the European Union’s Seventh Framework
Programme (FP7/2007-2013), under grant agreement
nº 249685 (CIRCLE-2 ERA-Net).
The authors would like to express their gratitude to
the project leaders of the projects ARNICA (Vincent
Jomelli), CAMELEON (Nicolas Viovy), ChangingRISKS
(Jean-Philippe Malet) and EURAS-CLIMPACT (Hermann
Häusler) for the draft texts provided from their project
work. The authors also thank CIRCLE-MOUNTains’
Scientific Advisory Board chaired by Dr. Ingeborg
Auer for their constant advice.
This publication reflects only the authors’ views and
neither the European Union nor any person acting
on behalf of the Commission is liable for any use that
may be made of the information contained therein.
Contact
Markus Leitner, CIRCLE-MOUNTain Coordinator
Environment Agency Austria (EAA)
E-mail: [email protected]
Design
Studio Hands, The Netherlands
Creative direction
Studio Lakmoes, The Netherlands
Illustrations
Studio Lakmoes, The Netherlands
Printing
Drukkerij Tienkamp, The Netherlands
Copyright © 2014 FFCUL, Lisbon, Portugal
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Climate Change and Mountain Areas