Mountain Context Research Articles

Renaissance der Kapelle: neue Bauformen eines alten Bautyps im alpinen Raum

This article reflects on the revival of the architectural class of the chapel, highlighting its growing popularity not only in urban areas but also in mountain contexts. Using the Theodul-Kapelle on Alpe Niedere designed by Cukrowicz Nachbaur Architekten as an example, the uniqueness of this type of building and its impact on contemporary society is emphasised in the discussion. Delving into the architectural reinterpretation and the significance of private financing for such endeavours, this article ponders the contemporary yearning for sacred and reflective spaces, transcending religious boundaries. The debate on Christian-Catholic sacred architecture and the role of chapels as interfaith places of devotion is also explored. Through further examples like Bernardo Bader’s Salgenreuthe Chapel, which retains traditional elements in an abstract context, architectural inclinations and inventive approaches in chapel construction are analysed. In conclusion, the article suggests that chapels embody the contemporary search for spirituality, offering emotional and sensory experiences through their concentrated and reduced architecture, acting as places of (self) exploration in an ever-evolving world.

Seasonal rockfall risk analysis in a touristic island: Application to the Tramuntana Range (Mallorca, Spain)

Rockfalls are an ever-present possibility in the mountainous context of the Tramuntana Region (Mallorca, Spain). Recent events have shown the high potential for direct and indirect impact on the safety of people and economic activities, lasting for weeks or even months. In the present study, we start from a probabilistic assessment of the rockfall hazard (spatial propensity and temporal recurrence), based on a detailed historical record of occurrences and rockfall modelling, which is subsequently superimposed on three exposure scenarios and on a social vulnerability assessment. Exposure considers the floating population at three seasons of the year, given the area's high tourist aptitude. Vulnerability considers on the one hand the intrinsic characteristics of individuals and, on the other, the characteristics of the surrounding territory that act to facilitate emergency operations, mitigate the immediate impact and enhance rapid recovery. Due to the characteristics of the island and the spatial distribution of tourism, the results show that the highest density of rockfall trajectories potentially affect areas of high exposure, whose access by emergency services is complex. Not being, in general, the areas of highest individual criticality, those areas have in most situations low support capability installed or nearby.The results constitute a useful tool for emergency and risk management planning in multiple sectors linked to risk governance. Despite the high geographic detail of the analysis, these studies do not replace exposure and vulnerability analysis at the building level, for which the contribution of georeferenced Census data is fundamental.

Road bridges exposure and alternative routes: towards the definition of road network resilience

The road network represents both element-at-risk and key infrastructure to ensure the accessibility of peripheral areas. The overall risk levels of bridges depend on geophysical (mainly earthquakes and landslides) and hydrometeorological hazards (mainly floods), the physical vulnerability of structures, and the exposure (mainly resulting from traffic flows and the presence of alternative roads). In mountain contexts and peripheral territories, the accessibility of entire territorial system directly depends on few trunk and secondary roads. The risk assessment of bridges, according to the Ministerial Guidelines, provides inputs for a territorial risk assessment starting from the accessibility of peripheral territories and the redundancy of the road network as features to determine the resilience of the road network. This study aims at understanding the relationships between bridges as elements-at-risk part of the road network and the influence they have on the overall accessibility of a territory. In this study, through a GIS analysis of a set of selected roads of the Provinces of Caserta (Campania Region), the presence of bridges along the selected roads have been combined with data on the accessibility levels of municipalities they connect. At this purpose, reference to the classification provided by the National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI) has been made to understand how such a classification can change due to a road interruption because of a bridge interruption. The contribution aims at setting the stage for the implementation of a method to determine the presence of alternative roads based on travel times adopted by the SNAI classification and, as a result, the definition of unique threshold values that justifies the variation of the exposure class and allows to determine the resilience of the whole road network.

Coexistence of a Marginal Mountain Community with Large-Scale and Low Kinematic Landslide: The Intensive Monitoring Approach

Mountain territories affected by natural hazards are vulnerable areas for settlements and inhabitants. Additionally, those areas are characterized by socio-economic marginality, further favoring their abandonment. The study area is located in Liguria (Italy), and a large, slow-moving phenomenon endangers the settlements in the region. Monitoring such phenomena requires the use of instruments capable of detecting yearly, millimetric displacements and, due to their size, the use of remote techniques which can provide deformation measurement of the entire extent of the phenomenon. The methodology proposed here couples long-term interferometric remote sensing data analysis with intensive in situ monitoring (inclinometer, piezometers and global navigation satellite systems). Furthermore, the inclinometric measurements were carried out with an experimental, robotized inclinometer. The aim is to frame the overall context of ground deformation, assure information for inhabitants, stakeholders and land-planners, and secure coexistence with the phenomenon. Remote sensing provided a time series of 28 years of deformation measurements while in situ instrumentations allowed, in the last years, a better understanding of the surficial and deep behavior of the phenomenon, confirming the satellite data. Additionally, the high-frequency monitoring allowed us to record acceleration after precipitation peaks. The proposed approach, including the experimental instruments, proved its viability and can be replicated in similar mountain contexts.

Switching from Risks to Opportunities: The Application of a Superbonus Tax Incentive to Heritage Buildings from the 1960s in Fragile Mountain Contexts

This paper introduces actual considerations for the progressive disuse of residential space in the Alpine territory, considering possible actions. Nowadays, the building complexes built around the 1960s and 1970s (a symbol of mass tourism) are suffering and searching for a new identity. The generation of owners who bought them has aged and the propensities of the new generations for holiday in those places has changed, which means fewer opportunities for leisure, particularly in the winter. Due to the great attention (and seeming opportunities) of current incentive policies toward improving the energy use of the existing stock, the authors investigate the private conveniences of transformations through the refurbishment of these buildings. Starting from a study of the territory and the dynamics of the local population, this research analyzes a possible set of energy works, based on a new (2020) incentive measure, the 110% Superbonus, which consists of a series of facilitation mechanisms, deductions, and reimbursements for building interventions. A large part of the insight is focused on a technical and economic feasibility study of the possible actions, following a process based on the evolution of the legislation. This work is based on a specific case study, located in a small municipality in the Piedmont mountain area, consisting of three apartment blocks of mostly second homes. The methodology adopted lends itself on the one hand, as a guide for preliminary economic energy assessments and, on the other hand, as a policy evaluation tool from the public and private perspectives.

Robustness of Optimized Decision Tree-Based Machine Learning Models to Map Gully Erosion Vulnerability

Gully erosion is a worldwide threat with numerous environmental, social, and economic impacts. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the performance and robustness of six machine learning ensemble models based on the decision tree principle: Random Forest (RF), C5.0, XGBoost, treebag, Gradient Boosting Machines (GBMs) and Adaboost, in order to map and predict gully erosion-prone areas in a semi-arid mountain context. The first step was to prepare the inventory data, which consisted of 217 gully points. This database was then randomly subdivided into five percentages of Train/Test (50/50, 60/40, 70/30, 80/20, and 90/10) to assess the stability and robustness of the models. Furthermore, 17 geo-environmental variables were used as potential controlling factors, and several metrics were examined to evaluate the performance of the six models. The results revealed that all of the models used performed well in terms of predicting vulnerability to gully erosion. The C5.0 and RF models had the best prediction performance (AUC = 90.8 and AUC = 90.1, respectively). However, according to the random subdivisions of the database, these models exhibit small but noticeable instability, with high performance for the 80/20% and 70/30% subdivisions. This demonstrates the significance of database refining and the need to test various splitting data in order to ensure efficient and reliable output results.

Conditions for Operating in Marginal Mountain Areas: The Local Farmer’s Perspective

Agriculture and local food products can have a significant impact on the economic development of rural areas. However, in environments as harsh as marginal mountain areas it may be difficult to find the right conditions to start a new production. This study aims to present the positive and negative circumstances for starting and operating agricultural activities in minor mountain contexts while assuming the mountain farmer’s viewpoint. With reference to the Soana Valley, in the Northwestern Italian Alps, four semi-structured interviews with mountain farmers have been carried out to assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Preliminary results include land availability, lack of marketing skills, high level of bureaucracy and financial overexposure as the main limitations in starting new economic activity. The adoption of quality/origin labels and multifunctionality in agriculture and tourism as the end market can be considered to be potential flywheels by operators. Therefore, local policy makers can support farmers by firstly reducing land fragmentation and secondly by providing technical assistance for achieving financial funding.

Empowering rural service providers to improve nutrition in mountain regions

Improved agroecological practices tend to lead to production diversity but often fall short of achieving optimal dietary diversity in rural contexts. Thus, multi-prong interventions involving knowledge and skill development for production and consumption are needed. This study assesses nutrition and production-related interventions implemented in the East African Highlands, Pamir-Tian Shan, Hindukush and the Andes. Overall, 601 rural service providers were trained and supported to implement various nutrition-sensitive agroecological interventions. Study results show that these interventions significantly increased the intake of flesh food, eggs, vitamin A-rich leafy greens, and vitamin-A-rich vegetables and fruits. The increase in production diversity was correlated with the increase in dietary diversity. Thus this study highlights the crucial role of rural service providers in catalyzing nutrition-related changes in mountain contexts.

Capacity Needs Assessment for Implementation of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency in the Cardamom Value Chain of Nepal's Mountain Regions: Results of a Survey Study

The HKH region presents an immense opportunity for implementing decentralized, sustainable energy solutions that rely on renewable energy sources. However, the region remains vulnerable to energy poverty due to inadequate capacity at various levels for deploying renewable energy and energy efficiency (RE&EE) solutions in mountainous areas. To achieve sustainable economic, social, and environmental performance, a thorough understanding of capacity development in RE&EE deployment within the value chain concept is crucial. This paper introduces a capacity needs assessment framework for the mountainous context, which was developed and applied to Nepal's cardamom value chain to explore the interplay of different core capabilities at individual and organizational levels. The survey study aimed to identify the specific capacity requirements necessary for the effective deployment of RE&EE solutions in the cardamom value chain. The analysis revealed significant capacity development needs on core capabilities affecting RE&EE deployment within the value chain, including technical skills, knowledge transfer, institutional strengthening, and policy development. The study also identifies challenges encountered when implementing RE&EE solutions in the cardamom value chain, such as financial constraints, technical challenges, and lack of awareness and education. Based on the study's findings, policymakers can design and implement effective capacity development initiatives that address the identified gaps and challenges and promote the deployment and implementation of RE&EE solutions in Nepal's mountain regions. This framework's applicability can extend to other value chains, such as tourism, dairy, poultry, and transportation sectors, by considering appropriate study dimensions and key indicators for value chain analysis.

Diachronic quantitative snow avalanche risk assessment as a function of forest cover changes

This work proposes a holistic quantitative snow avalanche risk assessment that evaluates, at reasonable computational costs and for various types of buildings, the impact of forest cover changes on the probability distribution of runout distances, impact pressures and subsequent risk estimates. A typical case study of the French Alps shows that, from a completely deforested to a completely forested path, avalanche risk for a building located downslope decreases by 53–99%, depending on how forest cover is accounted for in avalanche statistical–dynamical modeling. Local forest cover data inferred from old maps and photographs further demonstrates that a 20–60% risk reduction actually occurred between 1825 and 2017 at the site because of the afforestation dynamics, with significant modulations according to the considered building technology. These results (1) assert the protective role of forests against snow avalanches, (2) highlight the potential of combining nature-based solutions with traditional structural measures to reduce risk to acceptable levels at reasonable costs, (3) suggest a significant decrease in risk to settlements in areas that encountered similar forest cover changes and (4) open the door to the quantification of long-term avalanche risk changes as a function of changes of all its hazard, vulnerability and exposure drivers in various mountain context.

Civil society's perception of forest ecosystem services. A case study in the Western Alps.

Forest Ecosystem Services (FES) are widely recognised by the society nowadays. However, no study in the literature has analysed a ranking of FES after the pandemic. This paper investigated civil society’s perception and knowledge toward these services; in addition, the presence of attitudinal or behavioural patterns regarding individual’s preference, was assessed. A choice experiment was conducted using the Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) method on a sample of 479 individuals intercepted in the Argentera Valley, in the Western Italian Alps. Results, showed a strong interest in biodiversity, aesthetic landscape quality and psychophysical health and a lower interest in provisioning services. Based on the individual preferences, civil society was clustered into five groups for FES, named “Hedonistic,” “Individualist with cultural and health interests,” “Sensitive to regulatory and utilitarian functions,” “Climate change sensitive” and “Livelihood and hedonistic wellbeing.” In general, there was a growing appreciation by civil society for the intangible services offered by the forest, driven by modern lifestyles and an interest in learning more about the provided services. Based on these elements, we believe that similar research should be extended to other mountain contexts to validate the results or to find new insights, and that it is now necessary to study how to involve civil society in decision-making processes of forest planning and management at a local level.

Geoheritage Assessment and Potential Geotouristic Enhancement in Mountain Environments: a Test-Site in the Northern Apennines (Italy)

This work proposes an integrated methodology to inventory and quantitatively assess the geosites located in a mountain context of northern Apennines. The geological and geomorphological heritage and the historical, cultural, and religious heritage produce a complex cultural landscape. Such a context is expressed sometimes through monumental examples and other times through hidden or invisible points of interest. In particular, the test area is located between the Emilia-Romagna and Toscana regions (high valley of Tiber, Senatello and Marecchia rivers), including part of three protected areas. The choice of these test sites has been addressed also considering that meaningful historical sites and cultural testimonies are widely present, in addition to the geological and geomorphological features. Amongst these sites, we have considered the Mt. Faggiola Castle ruins, where Dante was possibly hosted when exiled from Florence, the St. Francesco route from Rimini to La Verna, the Historical Park of the Gothic Line of Badia Tedalda and the background of one of the most iconic Leonardo da Vinci’s portraits, la Gioconda.

Influence of climate variability on water resource availability in the upper basin of Oum-Er-Rabiaa, Morocco

This study aims to analyze rainfall data series of four hydrometric stations in a mountainous context in Morocco, over the period 1970–2017. Periods of disruption were identified through statistical approaches based on rupture detection: the Pettitt test, the Bayesian procedure of Lee and Heghinian, and the Buishand test. The results show that the studied series are characterized by several breaks which indicate a variation in the overall trend of the rainfall regime during 1980, 1995, 2000, and around 2010. In addition, a diagnostic of dry and wet years is carried out by applying the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI); a prolonged period of drought was observed from 1980 to 2010, with the exception of several short-term rainy events, such as in 1994–1996 and the early 2000s. The variability of spring discharge indicates an evolution consistent with that of rainfall; the largest decrease in flow rates was recorded during the period from 1980 to 1993. In addition, periods of abrupt increases were identified, with a maximum recorded in 1994–1996. The phase opposition showed a marked consistency between the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the SPI, and the variability of spring discharge, which provides an overview of the influence of atmospheric circulation on the evolution of precipitation and, consequently, on the availability of water resources in the area.

The landscape, product and resource. The experience of Contrada Bricconi in the Orobic Alps

The project of Contrada Bricconi started out as Giacomo Perletti’s dream. Born in 1986, he is a farmer and the symbol of the great passion that has driven the development project of a farm that has existed since 2010, which was when an agreement was signed between the newly founded company and the municipality of Oltressenda Alta. The agreement provided for the concession of some buildings owned by the municipality in Contrada Bricconi, an ancient stone farm settlement dating back to the 15th century and located at around 900 meters above sea level, on the border of the Parco delle Orobie Bergamasche in Val Zurio, a valley situated at the side of the Serio River basin. Since that day, the company has seen a surprising convergence of multiple people, institutions, and initiatives. Over the years, they have contributed to the realization of an ambitious project aimed at reintroducing an agricultural activity in the contrada, which had been in a state of semi-abandonment, redeveloping the existing buildings while preserving the landscape, offering the appropriate catering and hospitality for the mountain context, ensuring the economic sustainability of the new-born company. The history of Contrada Bricconi tries to teach that the landscape is itself the product of a rural society that has shaped the vegetation, topography, infrastructures, and settlements over the centuries. The return of agricultural activities in the mountains, albeit intervening on pre-existing ecological and social balances, is essential to ensure the preservation of the local heritage, which needs people’s presence and work to survive.

A southern refugium for temperate tree species in the Mediterranean mountains of El Port massif (NE Iberia): Charcoal analysis at Cova Del Vidre

This study focuses on the analysis of wood charcoal from Cova del Vidre (Roquetes, Tarragona, Spain). This cave, located at an altitude of 1000 m a.s.l., is a key site for understanding the transition from hunting and gathering to farming in a mountainous region of north-eastern Iberia so far unexplored by archaeobotany. The anthracological study is based on four archaeological levels from the Epipalaeolithic to the Early Neolithic dated between 12.9 and 6.8 kyr cal BP, that is, from the Late Glacial period to the Middle Holocene. During the Younger Dryas, the record is dominated by a little varied spectrum of cryophilous pines ( Pinus tp. sylvestris) and thorny shrubs revealing an open landscape where Prunus may prefigure the spread of temperate taxa. In the Early Holocene, a significant change in temperature and precipitation is evidenced, which promoted successional changes in plant communities, with a decline of pine and the sudden rise of temperate/Mediterranean taxa, such as Prunus and Quercus coccifera/ilex. During the Middle Holocene, other temperate taxa appear, such as Quercus deciduous, Buxus sempervirens and Taxus baccata, with yew finally dominating the anthracological record. The appearance and early development of temperate or Mediterranean species as early as the Younger Dryas and the Early Holocene periods, in a mountain context that had long been favourable for Scots pine, allows us to argue the local existence of a glacial refugium. Differences with the nearby sites in the lowlands demonstrate that altitudinal differences in vegetation were already established in the Holocene. Furthermore, the site helps to define the palaeodistribution of Taxus baccata, Abies alba and Fagus sylvatica in southern Europe.

Hybrid Gravimetry to Map Water Storage Dynamics in a Mountain Catchment

In mountain areas, both the ecosystem and the local population highly depend on water availability. However, water storage dynamics in mountains is challenging to assess because it is highly variable both in time and space. This calls for innovative observation methods that can tackle such measurement challenge. Among them, gravimetry is particularly well-suited as it is directly sensitive–in the sense it does not require any petrophysical relationship–to temporal changes in water content occurring at surface or underground at an intermediate spatial scale (i.e., in a radius of 100 m). To provide constrains on water storage changes in a small headwater catchment (Strengbach catchment, France), we implemented a hybrid gravity approach combining in-situ precise continuous gravity monitoring using a superconducting gravimeter, with relative time-lapse gravity made with a portable Scintrex CG5 gravimeter over a network of 16 stations. This paper presents the resulting spatio-temporal changes in gravity and discusses them in terms of spatial heterogeneities of water storage. We interpret the spatio-temporal changes in gravity by means of: (i) a topography model which assumes spatially homogeneous water storage changes within the catchment, (ii) the topographic wetness index, and (iii) for the first time to our knowledge in a mountain context, by means of a physically based distributed hydrological model. This study therefore demonstrates the ability of hybrid gravimetry to assess the water storage dynamics in a mountain hydrosystem and shows that it provides observations not presumed by the applied physically based distributed hydrological model.

“Translated” or “Transformed”: The Use of Western Hymns in the Evangelization of the Lisu of Southwest China

Translated western hymns have a bad reputation in missiology. The term “translated” seems to convey a less than authentic expression of Christian faith. However, that was not how it happened when the Lisu of southwest China were evangelized by missionaries from the China Inland Mission in the 1920s and 1930s. The Lisu people exerted much more agency over their translated western hymns than the term “translated” implies. While the kernel of melody and message remained intact, four-part harmonies replaced unison singing. A cappella replaced piano or organ accompaniment. Phrases meaningful in a Victorian context were transformed into phrases meaningful in a Lisu mountain context. Abstract theological terms were replaced by concrete phrases. Western rhyming schemes were laid aside and Lisu poetic couplets were used instead. The end result is that in the everyday arena, in the practical living out of what it means to be a Christian for a communal and still largely oral-preference people such as the Lisu, the Lisu Christian hymns are the centerpiece of worship and devotion, of prayer and penitence. In other words, in the process of cross-cultural transmission, the Lisu hymns were not so much translated, as they were transformed.

Abitare, abitazione

The verb “to dwell” has seen its meaning gradually expanded beyond the field of housing to cover wider ranges. In its various extensions, the debate on housing today has been mainly developed within the urban environment, while in the mountain (and alpine) context there seems to be a greater interest in matters of expressive language. The echoes of the close coherence between building, living and housing that characterised the Alps of the past are now far away. This contribution investigates how, in light of a point of view on dwelling between housing and territory, architecture can help to develop a project for the home that represents the new vitality that is affecting the Alps and its society. Ethics of the job, meaning of building, response to social questions, relational value of the architectural form and of the “in-between” space are some themes that are introduced as possible tools for a practice on the subject.

Learning Case Study of a Shallow-Water Model to Assess an Early-Warning System for Fast Alpine Muddy-Debris-Flow

The current climate change could lead to an intensification of extreme weather events, such as sudden floods and fast flowing debris flows. Accordingly, the availability of an early-warning device system, based on hydrological data and on both accurate and very fast running mathematical-numerical models, would be not only desirable, but also necessary in areas of particular hazard. To this purpose, the 2D Riemann–Godunov shallow-water approach, solved in parallel on a Graphical-Processing-Unit (GPU) (able to drastically reduce calculation time) and implemented with the RiverFlow2D code (version 2017), was selected as a possible tool to be applied within the Alpine contexts. Moreover, it was also necessary to identify a prototype of an actual rainfall monitoring network and an actual debris-flow event, beside the acquisition of an accurate numerical description of the topography. The Marderello’s basin (Alps, Turin, Italy), described by a 5 × 5 m Digital Terrain Model (DTM), equipped with five rain-gauges and one hydrometer and the muddy debris flow event that was monitored on 22 July 2016, were identified as a typical test case, well representative of mountain contexts and the phenomena under study. Several parametric analyses, also including selected infiltration modelling, were carried out in order to individuate the best numerical values fitting the measured data. Different rheological options, such as Coulomb-Turbulent-Yield and others, were tested. Moreover, some useful general suggestions, regarding the improvement of the adopted mathematical modelling, were acquired. The rapidity of the computational time due to the application of the GPU and the comparison between experimental data and numerical results, regarding both the arrival time and the height of the debris wave, clearly show that the selected approaches and methodology can be considered suitable and accurate tools to be included in an early-warning system, based at least on simple acoustic and/or light alarms that can allow rapid evacuation, for fast flowing debris flows.

Le case di Lois Welzenbacher, dispositivi che reinventano lo spazio alpino

"As an exponent of that “Tyrolean” generation of architects that in the Germanspeaking central-eastern Alps will be decisive in the specific declination of the themes of architectural modernity within the mountain context, Lois Welzenbacher realizes, between the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, a series of houses and villas that reinvent the relationship between architecture and Alpine environment in completely new and inaugural terms. The Buchroithner house built in 1928-30 in Zell am See, the Rosenbauer house built in 1929-30 in Linz, and the Buchroithner house built in 1932 again in Zell am See establish a new way of relating to the space and to the Alpine landscape: they incorporate the mountain landscape, and at the same time they transform and change in relation to the topographic morphology of the site, giving life to an architecture that builds a relational dialectic with its surroundings in a completely new way. In this respect, the works of Lois Welzenbacher represent a decisive threshold in the conceptualization of the construction in the Alps."