🌄Fold Mountains Case Study- Alps

Question 1

What boundary?

Answer 1

Collision boundary between African and Eurasian plate

Question 2

Population?

Answer 2

Around 12 million

Question 3

What are the main uses of the Alps?

Answer 3

Farming
Hydro Electric Power
Tourism
Mining
Forestry

Question 4

Farming?

Answer 4

• steel upland areas are used to farm goats (milk cheese etc)
• sunnier slopes are terraced to plant vineyards, in Switzerland for example
• subsistence farming (grow enough to have enough to eat) don’t have to sell it for trade or lose any

Question 5

Hydro electric power?

Answer 5

• narrow valleys are dammed
• Switzerland gets 60% of electricity from HEP in the Alps
• electricity is also exported away to towns and cities

Question 6

Tourism?

Answer 6

100 million tourists visit a year
70% of them go to visit for the snow and skiing, ice climbing etc
In summer they go for climbing etc
-new villages have been built to cater quantity of tourists e.g. ones in France
-ski runs, lifts and chalets pepper the landscape

Question 7

Mining?

Answer 7

• salt , iron and copper were mined in Alps

- but this has declined dramatically due to cheaper resources

Question 8

Forestry?

Answer 8

• Scots Pine is planted all over Alps as it’s more resilient to the munching goats which kill native tree samplings by eating them
• tree logs are sold for furniture etc

Question 9

How have people adapted to the Alps conditions?

Answer 9

STEEP RELIEF- goats are farmed there as they are well adapted to living on steep. Trees are planted to protect against avalanches
Crops are planted lower down as soil is more fertile due to them being volcanoes
POOR SOILS- animals are grazed in higher areas as soil isn’t good for growing crops
LIMITED COMMUNICATIONS- roads have been built over passes(low points in mountain) example is Brenner Pass between Austria and Italy which is 1,300 m long
Tunnels have been cut through mountains to provide fast transport links , there’s one in Switzerland