Global change impacts on mountain hazards and tourism in the Aconcagua region, Mendoza, Argentine

LEIVA, JUAN CARLOS; MACKERN, VIRGINIA; CABRERA, GABRIEL ALBERTO; LENZANO. LUIS EDUARDO

Chippenham, Perth, Escocia

Conferencia; OPEN SCIENCE CONFERENCE ON GLOBAL CHANGE IN MOUNTAIN REGIONS; 2005; 2005

MRI (Mountain Research Initiative), MAB (Man and the Biosphere Programme, UNESCO) & Center for Mountain Studies

The 2003 - 2005 Horcones Inferior glacier behaviour shows how the Global Change could impact on the economy by  increasing natural hazards in the Aconcagua Park affecting the future tourism revenues.  This paper describes the extraordinary advance of Horcones Inferior glacier that endangered the Confluencia camp during the 2003/2004 and 2004/2005 climbing seasons of Mt. Aconcagua. Satellite images analyses and field surveys were used to obtain glacier velocity that reached up to fifty meter per day in a surge like displacement. It also analyses the possible causes for  this surge considering that the Horcones Inferior glacier is a regenerated glacier fed by snow and ice falling from the Aconcagua South Wall. The ice avalanches frequency augmentation due to the increased temperature, the elevation of the 0ºC isotherma has also increased and this may have changed the thermal conditions of the South Wall glacier that, in turn, may have caused the extraordinary advance of the Horcones Inferior glacier. The analysis of this case allowed the authors establishing which could be thefuture scenario, owed to natural hazards, in the upper basin of the Rio Mendoza. This makes possible to provide and propose the best actions for adaptation to the future conditions that could occur in the region.