A walking guide with app to explore research sites
WSL, the canton of Valais and the Pfyn-Finges Nature Park have the first hiking guide in Switzerland that allows you to explore research sites on foot. The backdrop of the Valais mountains beckons.
For over 30 years, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in the canton of Valais has been researching environmental issues such as large avalanches, forest fires and withering pine trees. In a number of places, measuring devices and installations bear witness to this work - here a mast that measures avalanches, there a scale for debris flows and radar equipment. But what is behind them? Interested parties can now find out in the new hiking guide "Hiking where others do research" (Haupt Publishing House), which is combined with a practical smartphone app for on-the-go and is published simultaneously in German and French.
WSL forest ecologist Thomas Wohlgemuth came up with the idea for a hiking book on research sites because the Valais attracts researchers and nature-loving laypeople alike. "The dry-warm Valais has become an early warning region for environmental change in recent decades," he says. That's why WSL researchers here are studying the many consequences of these changes.
On the track of environmental change
The eight hikes lead through fascinating landscapes to various stations. There is an irrigation experiment with pine trees in the Pfynwald, which are suffering from increasing drought, or the detective work on climate history hidden in the wood of ancient houses in the Lötschental. Other topics include the melting of glaciers up to the year 2100 together with the consequences for water management, the reconquest of the forest fire area of Leuk by nature or the development of settlements in the valley.
A novelty is also the accompanying free app for the smartphone (hiking.wsl.ch). It allows you to leave the book at home, shows the routes and the current location, and alerts you to the next waypost with information if you wish. It also contains portraits of animal and plant species and rocks that the hiker may encounter along the way, as well as numerous videos and links.
Four of the hikes lead through the Pfyn-Finges Nature Park. Its central position in the hiking guide symbolizes the importance for the region.
Source: WSL
