Tag Archive for: climate change

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1228 | 117 | Climate change, tourism and the 2026 Winter Olympics: threats and opportunities for the Italian Prealps | Simone Gamba

Mega-events such as the Olympics often involve popular locations established as tourist destinations. However, the need to build and modernize infrastructures, policy-making by the stakeholders, and the increase in tourist flows, trigger environmental, social, and economic effects that transcend the host cities and target areas. In the case of Milan-Cortina 2026, a territory that can be defined as an “ordinary mountain” or “middle mountain” (Varotto, 2020), might be affected by the externalities due to the mega-event, without relevant benefits. In the Italian Prealps, particularly, fragile intermediate areas, located between famous peaks and congested valley bottoms, environmental issues are pushing to redesign territorial development (Dematteis, 2020). The decrease in natural snowfall below 2000m altitude in recent years is prompting local governments in the “southern alpine front” (Pedrazzini, 2019) to reimagine their spatial planning and diversify the offer of facilities and services. Therefore, we aim to investigate possible implications, threats, and opportunities in the relationship between the upcoming Winter Olympics and local policies on an interregional scale, to highlight best practices to balance economic growth with sustainability, landscape protection, and climate change._x000D_
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Pedrazzini L. (2019), “Le diverse facce della montagna in declino: un’esperienza lombarda”, Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine, 107-1 | 2019 (online), DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/rga.5315._x000D_
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Dematteis M. (2020), “Il turismo in montagna: in crisi quello invernale di massa, in crescita quello «dolce»” su Il Mulino, Rivista trimestrale di cultura e di politica, 6, pp. 984-991, DOI: 10.1402/99426._x000D_
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Varotto M. (2020), Montagne di mezzo. Una nuova geografia, Einaudi, Torino_x000D_

Simone Gamba
IULM, Milano

 
ID Abstract: 117

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1211 | | Remote sensing of changing forest ecosystems: methods for risk assessment and adaptive management | Mariano Moreno De Las Heras (1); Antonio J. Molina (2); Guillermo Palacios (3); Eduardo A. Garcia-Braga (1); Antonio Peñalver-Alcalá (1); Xavier Úbeda (1)

Forest ecosystems cover about 35% of the European surface, where they play a key role for the maintenance of biodiversity and the provision of many other ecosystem services, including water cycle regulation, erosion control, habitat creation, carbon storage and sequestration, the production of market goods and both cultural and recreative services. Land abandonment in rural areas and extensive afforestation programs by national forest services have contributed to forest expansion and densification since the 1950’s in many European countries, particularly in the Mediterranean region. However, the increasing occurrence of climate extremes, such as droughts and heat waves, is rapidly changing the organization and function of these forest landscapes, compromising the provision of their ecological services under the influence of climate change. Common effects of climate extremes on forest ecosystems include the reduction of forest productivity, increased canopy defoliation, tree mortality, insect outbreaks and extensive wildfires. For example, the 2022 summer heat wave that recently affected western Europe, combined with prolonged drought conditions, resulted in over 8,500 km2 surface burnt by wildfires, with an important impact on forests ecosystems and protected Natura 2000 areas.
The development of rapid forest surveying methods and large-scale vulnerability assessment tools constitutes an essential challenge for the development of adaptive forest management in the present context of change. Currently, different types of remote sensing data (e.g., optical, multispectral, radar, LiDAR) from satellite, aerial and UAV platforms can be used to evaluate forest structure and dynamics. In fact, the increased availability of remote sensing data with a broad variety of temporal, spatial and spectral resolution can largely facilitate the detection and evaluation of forest ecosystems for environmental monitoring, modeling and description. This session will explore remote sensing methods for climate change risk and forest vulnerability evaluation, including mapping and analysis of, among others, the effects of drought, forest dieback and wildfires as well as forest structure and forest resilience assessment. We also welcome contributions dealing with the integration of remote sensing data with field observations and other spatial geo-information systems for the study of forest dynamics, forest restoration and adaptive forest management. We plan to organize the session in English, as a regular session with a series of oral talks and also some contributions as poster presentations for additional discussion

Mariano Moreno De Las Heras (1); Antonio J. Molina (2); Guillermo Palacios (3); Eduardo A. Garcia-Braga (1); Antonio Peñalver-Alcalá (1); Xavier Úbeda (1)
(1) Department of Geography, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, (2) Department of Hydraulic Engineering and Environment, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain, (3) Department of Forest Engineering, University of Cordoba, Spain

 
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1191 | | Land Degradation Challenges and Sustainability | Matija Zorn (1); Joaquim Farguell Pérez (2)

Land degradation is the result of human-induced actions that exploit soil and lead to degradation of its benefits, biodiversity, soil fertility and overall health. Land is being rapidly degraded around the world. Healthy natural resources and thriving ecosystems are needed to ensure food security for a growing global population. However, our current agricultural practices are causing the world’s soils to be degraded up to 100 times faster than they are regenerating through natural processes. We have already altered 70% of all ice-free land, affecting over 3.2 billion people. If we continue as we are, 90% of the land will bear our mark by the mid-21st century. The impacts of land degradation will be felt by most of the world’s population. Land degradation also alters and disrupts rainfall patterns, exacerbates weather extremes such as droughts or floods and causes accelerated erosion, not to mention influencing climate change. It leads to social and political instability that fosters poverty, conflict, and migration, thus sustainable solutions are needed to tackle all these challenges.The Land Degradation Challenges and Sustainability session will be organised by the Commission on Land Degradation and Desertification (COMLAND) of the International Geographical Union, which has been promoting and coordinating interdisciplinary research on land degradation and desertification for three decades and seeks to find sustainable solutions. Session type: presentationsLanguage: English

Matija Zorn (1); Joaquim Farguell Pérez (2)
(1) Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Anton Melik Geographical Institute, (2) Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Geografia i Història, Departament de Geografia

 
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1154 | 893 | Teaching climate change – challenges for curriculum thinking | Sofie Nilsson

Understanding and dealing with a genuine problem like climate change is a challenge for society and the world. Here, climate change is understood as the changes in earth systems, global warming and shifts in planetary boundaries. In this context, climate change is not just a contemporary problem, but also a problem for the future with. Thus, it could be regarded as a super-complex problem (Andersson et al., 2019) or a wicked problem (Rittel & Webber, 1973) since it brings predicaments for all! Hence it is highly relevant for school and geography teaching. _x000D_
This presentation will draw on preliminary results from a study on teachers’ curriculum thinking when planning teaching climate change. The presentation will also include the rigging of the study (in-service and practice-based design) and a description of data collection (interviews, imaginary-maps)._x000D_
The study and the preliminary results will be discussed in relation to the complexity of geography teaching, such as geographical analyses and geographical thinking (Nilsson &Bladh, 2022). Further, I will relate this to the Swedish Geography curriculum (Skolverket, 2022). Finally, I will connect my study to the discussion of Anthropocene as a challenge of curriculum thinking. _x000D_
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References:_x000D_
Andersson, K., Hylander, F., & Nylén, K. (2019). Klimatpsykologi. Hur vi skapar hållbar förändring. Natur & Kultur. _x000D_
Nilsson, S., & Bladh, G. (2022). Thinking Geographically? Secondary Teachers’ Curriculum Thinking when Using Subject-Specific Digital Tools. Nordidactica: Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education(2022: 3), 171–203. _x000D_
Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy sciences, 4(2), 155–169. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01405730 _x000D_
Skolverket. (2022). Kursplan i geografi (Lgr22). Skolverket. _x000D_
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Sofie Nilsson
Karlstad university

 
ID Abstract: 893

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1145 | | Transport, tourism and climate change: The tyranny of distance travelled | Dobruszkes Frédéric (1); Suau-Sanchez Pere (2,3); Wilson Julie (3)

IPCC (2022) estimates that the transport sector accounted for 15% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) direct emissions in 2019. The contribution of this sector to climate is progressively increasing in absolute terms due to growing traffic (more and longer trips), the predominance of the least-efficient transport modes (cars, vans, trucks and planes), as well as the slow pace of innovation.
Whilst the spotlight is generally on efficiency (e.g., emissions per passenger/kilometre), distance is a crucial geographical concept at the core of transport geography and by extension, it is a major factor influencing GHG emissions and climate footprint. All other things being equal, distance travelled directly affects energy consumption. However, during the last few years, transport environmental policy has been primarily centred on short-distance travel and urban/regional mobilities. This has significantly improved people’s lives and local air quality, but has not been enough to curb the growing GHG emissions.
Considering the context above, this special session explores the relationships among three aspects: transport, distance and climate change. All scales (from urban areas to the global), transport modes, passenger motivations (including tourism mobilities and goods may be considered for the session.
Potential topics include:

Is there a linear relationship between distance travelled and climate footprint?
Cycling and flying – personal responsibilities and contradictions inherent in balancing the climate consequences of transport mode choice for daily mobilities and leisure/tourism-based travel.
Tourism as a driver of long-haul flight emissions.
Replacement of short-haul flights with rail services as a possible means to reduce aviation’s contribution to climate change – can high-speed rail contribute to making aviation ‘greener’?
Current and future feasible alternatives to long-haul travel.
Likelihood of behavioural change in relation to long-haul travel – is price the only filter?
The environmental (in)efficiency of airport charges and specific aviation taxes against distance flown.
The relationship between social class, distance travelled and GHG emissions.
Buying local or buying global? The climate impact of global e-commerce platforms. Under the auspices of the IGU Commission on Geography of Tourism, Leisure, and Global Change and the IGU Commission on Transport & Geography.

Dobruszkes Frédéric (1); Suau-Sanchez Pere (2,3); Wilson Julie (3)
(1) Brussels Free University (ULB), (2) Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, (3) Cranfield University

 
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