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Glaciers, Climate and People: Holocene Transitions in the Stubai Valley

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Mountain Landscapes in Transition

Part of the book series: Sustainable Development Goals Series ((SDGS))

Abstract

The Austrian Stubai Valley starts at the modern transport monument of the Europa bridge of the A13, the lowest motorway crossing of the Alps and ends way back at the ice-covered peaks of the main Alpine ridge. The glaciers released the valley floor of today’s main villages during the Early Holocene, but natural processes still are major macro-drivers of the valley’s economic development. The steepness of the slopes necessitates warning systems, technical barriers to prevent avalanches and mudflows, as well as land use planning. These are the major strategies for coping with the omnipresent natural hazards, which have shaped the valley landscape for centuries. The article presents a broad overview of glacier development and also compiles a wealth of existing studies on past and present processes from the Early Holocene to the Anthropocene. The synopsis reveals that the effects of climate change and extreme events cannot be anticipated or discussed without a profound debate of cultural practices in the various societies and that a story of transitions underlies the nearly continuous land use in the area during the last millennia.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this study, the term transformation is used for changes caused by an intentional and active intervention, other changes are termed transitions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Federal Government of Tyrol for providing the geodata via the Open Government Data (OGD) Portal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IGF/ÖAW Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Technikerstrasse 21 a, Innsbruck, Austria

    Andrea Fischer, Lucia Felbauer, Andrina Janicke, Kay Helfricht & Helene Hoffmann

  2. Faculty of Physics - Isotope Physics, VERA Laboratory, University of Vienna, Währinger Straße 17, Vienna, Austria

    Eva-Maria Wild

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Helene Hoffmann

Authors
  1. Andrea Fischer
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  2. Lucia Felbauer
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  3. Andrina Janicke
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  4. Kay Helfricht
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  5. Helene Hoffmann
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  6. Eva-Maria Wild
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Contributions

AF designed the study, did the analysis, wrote the text and compiled the Figures. LF and AJ helped with mapping the late glacial stadials, KH mapped GI 5, H.H. did the radiocarbon dating of the charcoal layer in Schaufelferner, and E.-M. W. did the radiocarbon dating of all other samples.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrea Fischer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CEN Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability, Institute of Geography, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Udo Schickhoff

  2. (Deceased) Department of Geography, Delhi School of Economy, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India

    R.B. Singh

  3. Department of Geography, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India

    Suraj Mal

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Fischer, A., Felbauer, L., Janicke, A., Helfricht, K., Hoffmann, H., Wild, EM. (2022). Glaciers, Climate and People: Holocene Transitions in the Stubai Valley. In: Schickhoff, U., Singh, R., Mal, S. (eds) Mountain Landscapes in Transition . Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70238-0_9

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