IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/climat/v131y2015i4p591-605.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The vulnerability of Pyrenean ski resorts to climate-induced changes in the snowpack

Author

Listed:
  • Marc Pons
  • Juan López-Moreno
  • Martí Rosas-Casals
  • Èric Jover

Abstract

Winter tourism is the main source of income and the driving force of local development in many mountain areas. However, in recent years, the industry has been identified as being extremely vulnerable to future climate change. Although the Pyrenees has the largest ski area in Europe after the Alps, there are few detailed climate change vulnerability assessments on the ski resorts based in this region. This paper analyzes the vulnerability of the Pyrenean ski resorts to projected changes in the snowpack under various future climate scenarios. In addition, the study analyzes the sustainability of the snowmaking systems to offset the climate variability of natural snow cover. On average, the study predicts a shorter ski-season length, especially in low-altitude ski resorts in a moderate climate change scenario and for all ski resorts in a more intensive climate change scenario. However, a significant regional variability has been identified for the projected impacts at very short geographical distances within the studied area. Moreover, this paper shows that snowmaking cannot completely solve the problem for all ski resorts in the Pyrenees, as the measure can only act as a robust adaptation strategy in the region provided climate change is limited to +2 °C snowmaking. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Pons & Juan López-Moreno & Martí Rosas-Casals & Èric Jover, 2015. "The vulnerability of Pyrenean ski resorts to climate-induced changes in the snowpack," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 131(4), pages 591-605, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:131:y:2015:i:4:p:591-605
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-015-1400-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10584-015-1400-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10584-015-1400-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Scott & Geoff McBoyle, 2007. "Climate change adaptation in the ski industry," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 12(8), pages 1411-1431, October.
    2. T. P. Barnett & J. C. Adam & D. P. Lettenmaier, 2005. "Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7066), pages 303-309, November.
    3. Jamie Sanderson & Sardar M. N. Islam, 2007. "Climate Change and Economic Development," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-59012-0, October.
    4. J. Hendrikx & C. Zammit & E. Hreinsson & S. Becken, 2013. "A comparative assessment of the potential impact of climate change on the ski industry in New Zealand and Australia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 119(3), pages 965-978, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aurélie Corne & Olga Goncalves & Nicolas Peypoch, 2020. "Evaluating the performance drivers of French ski resorts: A hierarchical approach," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(3), pages 389-405, April.
    2. Martin Falk & Eva Hagsten, 2017. "Climate change threats to one of the world’s largest cross-country skiing races," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 59-71, July.
    3. José Luis Ruiz-Real & Juan Uribe-Toril & Jaime De Pablo Valenciano & José Ramos Pires Manso, 2019. "Ibero-American Research on Local Development. An Analysis of Its Evolution and New Trends," Resources, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-16, July.
    4. Daniel Moscovici, 2022. "Ski Resort Closures and Opportunities for Sustainability in North America," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-17, March.
    5. Geoffrey Klein & Yann Vitasse & Christian Rixen & Christoph Marty & Martine Rebetez, 2016. "Shorter snow cover duration since 1970 in the Swiss Alps due to earlier snowmelt more than to later snow onset," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 637-649, December.
    6. Jianping Yang & Yanxia Wang & Fan Tang & Xinyu Guo & Hongju Chen & Guangxi Ding, 2023. "Ice-and-snow tourism in China: trends and influencing factors," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rutty, Michelle & Scott, Daniel & Johnson, Peter & Pons, Marc & Steiger, Robert & Vilella, Marc, 2017. "Using ski industry response to climatic variability to assess climate change risk: An analogue study in Eastern Canada," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 196-204.
    2. Dawson, J. & Scott, D., 2013. "Managing for climate change in the alpine ski sector," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 244-254.
    3. Daniel Moscovici, 2022. "Ski Resort Closures and Opportunities for Sustainability in North America," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-17, March.
    4. Aurélie Corne & Olga Goncalves & Nicolas Peypoch, 2020. "Evaluating the performance drivers of French ski resorts: A hierarchical approach," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(3), pages 389-405, April.
    5. Martin Falk & Eva Hagsten, 2019. "Climate zone crucial for efficiency of ski lift operators," Current Issues in Tourism, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(6), pages 664-681, April.
    6. Stefano Duglio & Riccardo Beltramo, 2016. "Environmental Management and Sustainable Labels in the Ski Industry: A Critical Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-13, August.
    7. Qian, Yuan & Scherer, Laura & Tukker, Arnold & Behrens, Paul, 2020. "China's potential SO2 emissions from coal by 2050," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    8. Dalei Hao & Gautam Bisht & Hailong Wang & Donghui Xu & Huilin Huang & Yun Qian & L. Ruby Leung, 2023. "A cleaner snow future mitigates Northern Hemisphere snowpack loss from warming," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10, December.
    9. Subhani Keerthiratne & Richard S. J. Tol, 2017. "Impact of Natural Disasters on Financial Development," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 33-54, June.
    10. Diana R. Gergel & Bart Nijssen & John T. Abatzoglou & Dennis P. Lettenmaier & Matt R. Stumbaugh, 2017. "Effects of climate change on snowpack and fire potential in the western USA," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 141(2), pages 287-299, March.
    11. Richard G. Newell & William A. Pizer & Daniel Raimi, 2014. "Carbon Markets: Past, Present, and Future," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 191-215, October.
    12. Schaefli, Bettina & Manso, Pedro & Fischer, Mauro & Huss, Matthias & Farinotti, Daniel, 2017. "The role of glacier retreat for Swiss hydropower production," Earth Arxiv 7z96d, Center for Open Science.
    13. Michailidou, Alexandra V. & Vlachokostas, Christos & Moussiopoulos, Νicolas, 2016. "Interactions between climate change and the tourism sector: Multiple-criteria decision analysis to assess mitigation and adaptation options in tourism areas," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 1-12.
    14. Fuss, Sabine & Szolgayová, Jana & Khabarov, Nikolay & Obersteiner, Michael, 2012. "Renewables and climate change mitigation: Irreversible energy investment under uncertainty and portfolio effects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 59-68.
    15. Peter Grösche & Carsten Schröder, 2014. "On the redistributive effects of Germany’s feed-in tariff," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 1339-1383, June.
    16. Xiaodong Wang & Noureddine Berrah & Subodh Mathur & Ferdinand Vinuya, 2010. "Winds of Change : East Asia's Sustainable Energy Future," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2483.
    17. Tite Ehuitché Béké & Aïssata Sobia, 2020. "The Economic Impact of Climatic Variations on Ivorian Rice Farming," Journal of Agricultural Studies, Macrothink Institute, vol. 8(2), pages 88-109, June.
    18. Haiyan Fang & Zemeng Fan, 2021. "Impacts of climate and land use changes on water and sediment yields for the black soil region, northeastern China," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 6259-6278, April.
    19. Hanjra, Munir A. & Qureshi, M. Ejaz, 2010. "Global water crisis and future food security in an era of climate change," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 365-377, October.
    20. Fagerberg, Jan, 2018. "Mobilizing innovation for sustainability transitions: A comment on transformative innovation policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1568-1576.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:131:y:2015:i:4:p:591-605. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.