Alpine grassland vegetation at Gornergrat (Canton of Valais, Switzerland): Vegetation mapping for environ-mental planning

Abstract

Alpine landscapes are increasingly used by tourism. At the highly frequented Gornergrat in Switzerland there was a need to develop a concept to demerge the paths of hikers and mountain bikers and thus enable a conflict-free use for all user groups. The pre- sent study aimed at providing vegetation maps of the sensible areas at Gornergrat to derive recommendations for the planning and res- toration of the new trail network. For this purpose, we sampled 32 vegetation plots (10 m²). These were then subjected to TWINSPAN classification, and the derived five units characterized by their diagnostic species based on standardized phi-values. We used ANOVA to test for differences of these units with regard to environmental parameters. The five distinguished vegetation units were assigned to syntaxa down to the alliance level. Finally, a mapping key was derived from the synoptic table to allow the delimitation of units in the field, which resulted in two vegetation maps. We found protected habitats and vascular plant species, as well as a species of the Red List of vascular plants in the study area. Especially at the Riffel Lake, the area has striking disturbances of vegetation due to trampling, which has increased significantly in the last 30 years. For the Gornergrat concept we thus recommend (i) to make the disturbed vegetation at the eastern lake shore inaccessible to visitors, (ii) to restore this part with low-intensity measures and (iii) not to lead the planned new changes through sensitive areas (snow beds and fens). Keywords: