Case Study for the Alps

Geography Unit 1A - Fold Mountain Case Study

Here is a bit of a fun video of images of the beautiful land of the Alps... sorry about the crazy music. Although, I must say I like his taste in music!

Location - Central Europe (Switzerland, Slovenia, Liechtenstein, Italy, Germany, France and Austria)Formation - Formed about 30 million years ago by a collision between the African and European plates.Tallest Peak - Mont Blanc at 4810 m on the Italian-French border.Population - 12 million people

How the Fold Mountains of the Alps are used...

Tourism: 100 million tourists visit a year - tourism is a massive factor in the economy. About 70% of tourists visit the steep, snowy mountains for the winter skiing. New villages have now been built to accommodate the tourists on their stay. Equipment such as ski lifts and restaurants have been built to welcome more tourists!

Mining:Salt, iron ore, gold, silver and copper were mined in the Alps. Although, the amount of mining is less due to foreign exchange and trade unions being cheaper.

Hydro - Electric Power:Narrow valleys are dammed to generate HEP which is done by dams with turbines that make electricity when turned by the water.The electricity produced is locally used in homes and businesses. It's also used in towns and cities even further away!

Did You Know? 60% of the electricity used in Switzerland is generated by the HEP system in the Alps.

Forestry:Scots pine is one of the most common trees in the Alps. The trees are used for logging and building materials.

Farming:Sunny slopes are used to plant vineyards once they are terraced and the steep slops are used to graze animals.

How can people stand the steep slopes and isolation?

People have adapted to the conditions in the Alps such as Steep relief; goats are farmed as they are very adapted to the climates and the steep mountains. As avalanches and rockslides are very common so trees and man-made defences are used as protection. Poor soils are found on the steep slopes so the animals are grazed there. For communication, roads have been built over passes although they can get blocked by snow and rocks so their are tunnels to produce fast pass ways out of the Alps.

This information has in fact been taken from the AQA Specification A Geography revision guide book for those who don't have the book of prefer it 'dumbed' down a bit.

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