Applicability of Alp Inspection Reports for the Reconstruction of Land-Use and Mass Wasting History in the Ursern Valley, Switzerland

Changes in land use and climate can increase landscape susceptibility for mass wasting. This studyillustrates a method aimed at reconstructing landscape susceptibility for mass wasting in the UrsernValley, Switzerland, based on an analysis of alp inspection reports of the years 1950-2000. The yearlyreports were written by farmers commissioned to supervise pasture use and condition on the communalland. The analysis offers the possibility to reconstruct mass wasting history, its patterns in time andspace as well as its determining factors. Preliminary results show that mass wasting frequency increasedsince 1970 and that the recorded events are not distributed uniformly in time and space, but concentratedon geologically sensitive slopes which experienced an increase in grazing intensity.