Abstract
Defining the spatial extent of mountain areas has long been a challenge. In the present century, the availability of digital elevation models (DEMs) incorporated into geographic information systems (GIS) has allowed the definition of mountain areas based on topographic and other criteria. This paper presents the various delineations of mountains that have been prepared at three scales – global, regional (Europe), and national – and explores the reasons and processes leading to these delineations, and how they have been used. A detailed case study is then presented for Norway. Overall, two types of approaches to mapping mountains have been taken: first, considering mountains per se, based on elevation and/or topography; second, considering them among other categories, e.g., landforms or biogeographical, environmental or landscape zones. All attempts to map mountain areas derive essentially from the objectives of those commissioning and/or undertaking the work; a unitary definition remains unlikely.
Change history
13 June 2018
The article Mapping mountain areas: learning from Global, European and Norwegian perspectives, written by Martin F. PRICE, Tor ARNESEN, Erik GLØERSEN and Marc J. METZGER, was originally erroneously published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on May 21st 2018 without open access.
When the mistake was discovered the copyright of the article changed in June 2018 to © The Author(s) 2018 and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The original article has been corrected.
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The Norwegian case study was financed under a contract with Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation in Norway.
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Price, M.F., Arnesen, T., Gløersen, E. et al. Mapping mountain areas: learning from Global, European and Norwegian perspectives. J. Mt. Sci. 16, 1–15 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-018-4916-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-018-4916-3
Keywords
- Mountains
- Mapping
- Geographic information systems Europe
- Norway
- Topography