Why glaciated and periglacial landscapes are valued, how they are threatened by physical and human processes, and how their fragility creates management conflict.

What this dot point is asking

Edexcel wants you to explain why glaciated and periglacial landscapes are valued, how they are threatened by physical and human processes, why their fragility matters, and how competing demands create management conflict. You need the dimensions of value, the threats, the idea of fragility and resilience, and management approaches and players across scales.

Why glaciated landscapes are valued

Environmental value is high. Glaciers are vast freshwater stores that feed rivers in the melt season, sustaining downstream water supply and farming. They regulate the water and carbon cycles, and their bright ice reflects sunlight (high albedo), cooling the planet. Tundra and periglacial zones hold distinctive biodiversity adapted to the cold.

Cultural value comes from the sense of wilderness and remoteness, the indigenous significance of these landscapes to peoples such as the Inuit and Sami, and their importance for science, from ice cores recording past climate to research stations in Antarctica.

Economic value is substantial: tourism and skiing in the Alps, hydroelectric power (HEP) from steep meltwater-fed valleys, mining of minerals exposed by ice, and upland farming. These uses often compete, which is the root of management conflict.

Threats and fragility

Glaciated landscapes face physical and human threats, and their low resilience magnifies the damage.

Climate change is the dominant threat. Warming produces a negative mass balance (more melt than accumulation), driving glacier retreat, permafrost thaw and the risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) as meltwater lakes burst their moraine dams. Hazards such as avalanches and rockfalls increase as slopes destabilise. Human pressures add footpath erosion from tourism, dams for HEP, mining scars, and roads and pipelines that fragment the landscape and disturb permafrost.

Management, conflict and players

Because demands compete and the landscape is fragile, management means balancing players across scales.

Management operates at two scales. Locally, national parks, zoning and visitor management concentrate and limit impacts. Internationally, the Antarctic Treaty System governs Antarctica, suspending territorial claims and banning mining, while IAATO self-regulates Antarctic tourism. Players range from locals and indigenous peoples through governments, TNCs (ski and energy companies) to NGOs. The goal is sustainable adaptive management that maintains value while respecting fragility.

Examples in context

Example 1: Chamonix, French Alps. Chamonix, beneath Mont Blanc, draws around 5 million visitors a year, generating jobs but causing footpath erosion, traffic and avalanche risk to development on fragile slopes. Managers use sustainable tourism measures, visitor management and avalanche defences, illustrating the tourism-versus-conservation conflict on a slow-recovering alpine landscape.

Example 2: Antarctica and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Antarctica is governed by the Antarctic Treaty System (in force since 1961), which bans mining and military use, while IAATO regulates the growing tourist fleet to protect the wilderness. In Alaska, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline crosses permafrost on raised, heat-dissipating supports to stop the warm oil thawing the ground beneath, a direct response to fragility and climate change.

Try this

Q1. Explain why glaciated landscapes have high environmental value. [4 marks]

• Cue. They are freshwater stores, regulate the water and carbon cycles, have high albedo that cools the planet, and support distinctive tundra biodiversity.

Q2. Outline why managing glaciated landscapes often generates conflict between players. [4 marks]

• Cue. Competing uses (tourism, HEP, mining, conservation) and different players (locals, TNCs, governments, NGOs) want incompatible outcomes on a fragile, slow-recovering landscape.