Quantitative Long-Term Monitoring (1890–2020) of Morphodynamic and Land-Cover Changes of a LIA Lateral Moraine Section

Abstract

Aerial photographs of the European Alps usually only reach back to the middle of the 20th century, which limits the time span of corresponding studies that quantitatively analyse long-term surface changes of proglacial areas using georeferenced orthophotos. To the end of the Little Ice Age, this leads to a gap of about 100 years. Using digital monoplotting and several historical terrestrial photographs, we show the quantification of surface changes of a Little Ice Age lateral moraine section until the late second half of the 19th century, reaching a total study period of 130 years (1890–2020). The (initial) gully system expands (almost) continuously over the entire study period from 1890 to 2020. Until 1953, the vegetation-covered areas also expanded (mainly scree communities, alpine grasslands and dwarf shrub communities), before decreasing again, especially between 1990 and 2003, due to large-scale erosion within the gully system. Furthermore, our results show that the land-cover development was impacted by temperature and precipitation changes. With the 130-year study period, we contribute to a substantial improvement in the understanding of the processes in the proglacial by analysing the early phase and thus the immediate response of the lateral moraine to the ice exposure.