Mapping the Alps

Mapping the Alps

Axel Borsdorf, Ulrike Tappeiner & Erich Tasser

Electoral turnout in local elections (Tappeiner et al. 2008: 138).

Introduction the demographic, economic and social structures? These issues have motivated the authors to create a set of maps At first glance it seems an easy task to create an atlas that would answer such questions and encourage read- of the Alps. From their school days everybody remem- ers to study the enormous structural differences and the bers the map of the alpine countries as found in any rapid spatial and social changes that affect the Alps in Central European school atlas. Take a closer look and particular. you begin to wonder: where exactly do the Alps begin? Nearly twenty years ago, the Alpine Convention Where do they end? Does orography provide sufficient started on the task of creating a monitoring and in- information on the spatial structure of the Alps? Are the formation system for the Alps, but because of political Alps static or do they not rather experience a variety of and data-technical problems this task has not been sat- changes in the nature of the land, the cultural landscape, isfactorily completed to date. One of the most serious

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problems was the harmonization of data that have been resources, but they also expose the hillsides and valleys defined in a variety of ways in the official statistics of to various dangers. individual Alpine states and moreover may have been The population in the Alps does not only face natu- gathered at different points in time. This atlas aims to ral hazards. Currently, like many other areas, the Alps support the efforts of the Alpine Convention to build are under threat from global changes. Globalization has up a coherent transnational basis of information for the brought about market disadvantages that have had se- entire Alpine Space. vere social and economic effects and led to changes in The Atlas of the Alps (Tappeiner et al. 2008) was land use. Political as well as market processes have re- produced within the EU-financed project DIAMONT sulted in abandoned hillsides and agglomeration proc- (Interreg IIIb, Alpine Space) with support of various esses in the valleys. national funding bodies (Federal Ministry for the En- Agriculture, for example, is now practised on a vironment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, grand scale in the lowlands and causes excessive use of Germany; Bavarian State Ministry for the Environment, nitrogen and deposits in the soil while irrigation causes Health and Consumer Protection, Germany, Ministerio its salinization. Biodiversity is threatened by landscape delle infrastrutture e dei trasporti, Italy). It was a happy dissection and the encroachment of artificial areas. Po- coincidence that this project united scientists who had litical or economic structural changes, however, are not been involved in creating the information systems in the only phenomena. Climate change also profoundly SUSTALP, GALPIS, and the Working Group on En- transforms alpine reality and can clearly be seen in the vironmental Objectives and Indicators with researchers accelerating melting process of the glaciers. Its disas- and experts from Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Slov- trous effects show up in a series of problems such as the enia, and Switzerland. They all contributed to gathering lack of drinking water as rivers fed by glacier melt are the data as well as creating and interpreting the maps. no longer supplied adequately, and floods in the valleys after frequent storm rainfall. Increasing erosion exposes more and more regions to the risk of landslides. The Alps We must now protect this natural and cultural land- scape against degradation of any kind. To achieve this, The Alps are not only the highest inner-European it is essential to support sustainable development in this mountain chain, crossing eight different countries; they cultural and natural heritage of central Europe and by also contain a large variety of landscapes, species and doing so to stimulate adequate political responses. cultures. Usually one thinks of mountains as sparsely populated areas. In relation to the amount of land that is actually available for settlement or agriculture, how- The Atlas ever, they are among the most densely populated and the cultural heritage they preserve runs the whole gam- The maps cover the alpine arc as defined by the Alpine ut from ancient to contemporary. From the valleys to Convention. The texts were written in the languages the mountain tops, a variety of flora and fauna patterns spoken in the Alps, i. e. French, German, Italian and can be observed. The Alps are a hotspot of biodiversity Slovenian, to respect the cultural variety of the alpine and a complex ecosystem. Slope inclination and alti- region and to make it accessible for all inhabitants of tudinal climate gradients influence the natural dynam- the Alps. In addition, all texts have also been translated ics of soil, topography and thus the typology of land into English for the international scientific community use and habitat variety. The dominating environmental to benefit from the results. The map legends are in Eng- factors, such as water, snow and ice, provide freshwater lish to make them easier to read.

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Thematically, the maps focus on ecological and so- The concept of economic activity may serve as an cio-economic structures and processes in the Alps. This example. In principle, all countries of the Alpine Space is intended as it has been pointed out repeatedly that have the same concept of economically active (= em- the biggest information deficits exist in precisely these ployed) persons. It roughly follows the labour force con- areas. The maps should provide deeper insights into cept of the International Labour Organization (ILO) the challenges connected with global change (climate and defines “economically active” as meaning persons change, political, economic and cultural globalization). gainfully active in the period studied. These can be self- Adaptive strategies for facing future issues must be employed, employed but also family workers. based on sound data on the current structures and on a How employment is counted, however, can differ documentation of processes that are already under way. despite a common understanding. In 1990, in Italy all On analysing the maps new spatial patterns emerge. persons were counted who had worked for more than Sometimes the contrast between the Western and East- one hour in the reporting week, whilst in Switzerland ern and sometimes between the Northern, Central and the minimum working time was six hours, excluding Southern Alps is clearly visible. Often the cultural and numerous minimally employed from the group of the historic contrasts of the big language groups in the Alps economically active. Direct comparisons between these come through as well. Some maps, however, do not two countries are thus not possible: per definition Italy present such clear structures. In these maps, the spatial has more economically active people than Switzerland, pattern may be influenced by the different structures after harmonization the differences turn out to be mini- of rural and urban, agrarian, industrial or tourist com- mal. munities, as well as by the size of a municipality. Voter However, the trend towards homogeneity means turnout is a case in questions: at national level, i. e. for considerable changes in the national statistics over time, parliamentary elections, there are clear regional differ- which makes it more difficult to measure changes be- ences within the alpine region. Voter turnout in local tween two points in time, e. g. between the last two cen- elections, however, shows a completely different pic- sus years 1990 and 2000. ture, which can only be explained with reference to the Education is another striking example of the diffi- types of municipalities, e. g. urban versus rural. Then a culties in comparing national data. In the atlas, it was fairly simple structure emerges: the more remote a com- intended to work out the rate of people with A-levels munity, the higher the voter turnout (Fig. 1). (secondary school qualification for entering university) and university graduates as well as the proportion of people who have not completed compulsory education. Harmonization There are international systematics that theoretically enable a comparison, but the data are not necessarily It is a challenging task to harmonize data. In the Alps – gathered or provided according to this system. Thus it as well as in the whole of Europe – most data collec- is currently not possible to obtain comparable figures tion is organized nationally, even in joint projects. This for people with A-level qualifications. In Italy, people means that each country has some leeway in interpret- with A-levels are counted in with people who, after ing a common concept or that it defines some terms compulsory education, have attended a 2–3 year school differently from other countries. All definitions must course that ends without A-levels. In Switzerland, one therefore be carefully checked and compared to assess would have to include people with a “vocational Matura whether the data of individual countries are comparable school-leaving certificate” (Berufsmaturität), but these or not. If they are not, the values must be harmonized, were not counted as people with A-levels in the year which may mean minor inaccuracies. 2000 census. On top of that, there are no data on this

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for Germany, so we had to leave this indicator out of dicators for measuring sustainability. Within the MARS the atlas. project, an indicator system for monitoring sustainable An additional problem is the fact that within the development on NUTS 2 level across the Alpine Space Alps two different traditions prevail. The dualist educa- was developed (BAK Basel Economics 2005); Tappein- tion system in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and some er et al. (2003) analysed agrarian structures within the Italian provinces envisages not only a school career up Alps on the basis of municipal data as part of the EU to A-levels but also a vocational career within an ap- project SUSTALP; Perlik (2001), also on the basis of prenticeship. In France, Italy and Slovenia, this is only municipal data, investigated urbanization in the Alps available to a limited degree and the higher vocational for an area that included the Alps as well as a peri-alpine schools play a much less important role than in other belt with the metropolitan areas of Munich and Mi- countries. This tradition alone makes it more likely in lan; and Pfefferkorn et al. (2005), in the course of the Italy and France that in the absence of good alternatives REGALP project, developed indicators at municipal people opt for taking A-levels. level to characterize changes in the cultural landscape for the entire Alpine Space. A number of projects had produced detailed studies of individual countries and Indicator definition and scale could serve as reference for that country. These include RAUMALP, which developed a comprehensive web- Defining and calculating indicators of sustainable- re based GIS for Austria (http://www.galpis.at; Borsdorf gional development i. e. for economy, society and en- 2005), sustainability monitoring for South Tyrol, also vironment, presented another challenge. On the one web-based, which makes more than 70 sustainability hand, these indicators relate to selected phenomena of indicators available at municipal level (Tappeiner et al. sustainable development such as population dynam- 2007), and FUNAlpin, which developed 20 sustain- ics, gender integration or the diversity of cultural land- ability indicators for selected test regions in Switzerland scapes, and on the other, to regions of similar econom- (Siegrist et al. 2007). ic, social or environmental structure within the Alpine The studies mentioned above and many others are Space. Special emphasis was put on sustainable spatial based on the so-called “three pillars” model of sustain- management in the Alps. ability. This model starts from the assumption that In selecting the indicators to be used in the atlas we sustainable development can only be achieved if envi- were able to build on numerous existing studies on the ronmental, social and economic objectives are imple- subject. First and foremost among these was the UN mented concurrently and with equal weighting in such Commission on Sustainable Development, one of the a way as to maintain the livelihood for future genera- first institutions to explore the theme of sustainable de- tions. Based on this model, themes that are relevant for velopment and how to measure it in depth. Soon af- sustainability were chosen for each pillar. In the social ter, the EU picked up on the topic and is increasing its area, this could, for instance, be demographics or edu- efforts towards sustainable development, among other cation. This system is rounded off with another level, things by making detailed lists of indicators available. i. e. that of the indicators, which are used to quantify Such pan-European thinking is complemented by na- and measure the thematic areas. tional strategies for sustainable development which also However, most studies refer to regions (NUTS 2 provide a rich pool of information. or 3), while for Mapping the Alps we chose the munici- Not only international organizations, institutions pality (NUTS 5) as the unit to be studied in order to get and countries, but also research groups have grappled a closer look at spatial variability. with the topic and suggested as well as implemented in-

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Regions of similar development (Tappeiner et al. 2008: 272).

In order to indentify regions of similar development in Dynamic rural areas: rural location, dynamic labour the Alps, a cluster analysis was carried out using selected market. Influence of the tourism sector, relatively high indicators (Fig. 2). The indicators cover all areas of sus- occupation rates of women and elder people. tainability in equal measure. The analysis yielded eight Standard alpine regions: no outstanding features, clearly delimited development structures, which can average values of all indicators. Low tourist intensity, briefly be described as follows: decline of agriculture, negative commuter balance. Bal- Employment hubs: positive commuter balance, anced migration and birth rates. good transport infrastructure, existence of business Rural retreats: good transport links, long distance parks, industrial facilities and shopping centres. commuting. Decrease of agriculture in recent years, Residential municipalities: often in the vicinity of large natural spaces with little fragmentation and a employment hubs. Out commuting, low land prices, highly diverse landscape. good transport infrastructure. Traditional agricultural regions: overaging, poor Important tourist centres: well developed accomo- transport infrastructure. No retreat of agriculture, but dation facilities, good employment situation in the extensive farming. Rich traditional landscape. Poor em- service sector, functioning agricultural sector, intact ployment situation in the service sector. cultural landscape.

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Forgotten rural areas: distinct overaging, sharp de- Pfefferkorn, W., H.-R. Egli & A. Massarutto (eds.) cline in farming, poor transport infrastructure. Passive 2005. Regional Development and Landscape spaces threatened by depopulation. Change in the Alps. From Analysis and Scenarios to Policy Recommendations. Geographica Bernensia G74. Bern. Outlook Siegrist, D., M. Boesch & E. Renner 2007. Labelre- gionen – Strategien einer nachhaltigen Regional- entwicklung im Alpenraum. Synthesebericht des Not all phenomena of the alpine region can thus be rep- Projektes FUNalpin. FUNalpin, Arbeitsbericht 9. resented spatially. It would be very useful if the database St. Gallen. and its underlying geographical information system Tappeiner, U. et al. 2003. The EU Agricultural Policy could be represented in an open-access web-based geo- and the Environment. Evaluation of the Alpine Region. information system. As could be demonstrated in an Berlin. earlier project (GALPIS-Web), this is feasible and has Tappeiner, U., O. Lechner & G. Tappeiner 2007. Nach- been well received by both the public and the scientific haltiges Südtirol? Indikatoren zu Umweltgesellschaft community. So it may be hoped that another such sys- und Wirtschaft. – Alto Adige sostenibile? Indicatori per tem will be made available to enhance public informa- l’ambiente. – Sustainable South Tyrol? Indicators for tion on the spatial structures and development trends environment, society and economy. Bozen. within the alpine arc. Tappeiner, U., A. Borsdorf & E. Tasser (eds.) 2008. Al- penatlas – Atlas des Alpes – Atlante delle Alpi – Atlas Alp – Mapping the Alps. Society – Economy – Environ- Acknowledgements ment. Heidelberg.

This text was compiled from chapters in the volume Mapping the Alps. The authors acknowledge the con- tributions of Delia Gramm and Caroline Pecher. All figures are taken from Tappeiner, U., A. Borsdorf & E. Tasser (eds.) 2008. Mapping the Alps. Heidelberg: Springer Akademischer Verlag. The authors thank the publisher for permission to reprint the maps.

References

BAK Basel Economics 2005. MARS. Monitoring the Al- pine Regions’ Sustainability. Basel. Borsdorf, A. (ed.) 2005. Das neue Bild Österreichs. Strukturen und Entwicklungen im Alpenraum und in den Vorländern. Wien. Perlik, M. 2001. Alpenstädte – zwischen Metropolisa- tion und neuer Eigenständigkeit. Geographica Bern- ensia P38. Bern.

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