Overloaded! Critical revision and a new conceptual approach for snow indicators in ski tourism
Journal
International Journal of Biometeorology
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2020
Author(s)
;
Morin, Samuel
;
Demiroglu, Osman Cenk
;
François, Hugues
;
Rothleitner, Michael
;
Strasser, Ulrich
Abstract
Indicators are widely used in climate variability and climate change assessments to simplify the tracking of complex processes and phenomena in the state of the environment. Apart from the climatic criteria, the snow indicators in ski tourism have been increasingly extended with elements that relate to the technical, operational, and commercial aspects of ski tourism. These non-natural influencing factors have gained in importance in comparison with the natural environmental conditions but are more difficult to comprehend in time and space, resulting in limited explanatory power of the related indicators when applied for larger/longer scale assessments. We review the existing indicator approaches to derive quantitative measures for the snow conditions in ski areas, to formulate the criteria that the indicators should fulfill, and to provide a list of indicators with their technical specifications which can be used in snow condition assessments for ski tourism. For the use of these indicators, a three-step procedure consisting of definition, application, and interpretation is suggested. We also provide recommendations for the design of indicator-based assessments of climate change effects on ski tourism. Thereby, we highlight the importance of extensive stakeholder involvement to allow for real-world relevance of the achieved results.
Language
English
Keywords
Snow indicators
Ski tourism
Climate variability and change
Stakeholder process
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Springer
Pages
11
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Contact Email Address
bruno.abegg@unisg.ch
Eprints ID
261571
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Abegg_et_al_2020_Overloaded_IJBM.pdf
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Format
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