Fold mountains - The Alps

Case study of fold mountains which is the Alps

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  • Created by: Sblad99
  • Created on: 01-12-13 18:22

Fold Mountains - Alps uses

Farming - steep upland areas used to farm goats for milk, cheese and meat. Sunnier slopes terraced to plant vineyards e.g. Lavaux, Switzerland

HEP - narrow valleys dammed to generate HEP, e.g. Berne, Switzerland gets 60% of electricity from the Alps (HEP stations)

Tourism - 100 million tourists visit each year, good for economy, 70% of tourists visit steep, snow covered mountains for skiing. New villages built to cate for growing number of tourists e.g. Tignes in France. Ski runs, ski lifts, cable cars and restaurants pepper the landscape.

Forestry - Scots pine plated all over the Alps as there resilient to the goats which kill native tree saplings. Trees are logged and sold for things like furniture. 

Mining - Salt, iron ore, gold, silver and copped were mined but it has declined dramatically due to cheaper foreign resources. 

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Fold Mountains - Alps adaptation

Steep relief - goats are farmed because they're well adapted to live on steep mountains. Trees and man-made defences are used to rotect against avalanches and rock slides.

Poor soils - Animals are grazed in most high areas as the soil isn't great for growing crops. 

Limited communiactions - Roads have been built over passes (lower points between mountains) e.g. the Brenner Pass between Austria and Italy. It takes a long time to drive through passes and they can be blocked by snow, so tunnels have been cut through  mountains to provide fast transport links. For example the Lotschberg Base Tunnel has been cut through the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. 

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