Past changes in natural and managed snow reliability of French Alps ski resorts from 1961 to 2019

Berard-Chenu, Lucas; François, Hugues; George, Emmanuelle; Morin, Samuel

doi:10.5194/tc-16-863-2022

Cited by 5 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…The wider ski resort area is defined by its gravitational envelope. This concept was introduced by François et al (2014) and later refined and implemented by further studies (François et al, 2016(François et al, , 2023Spandre et al, 2019;Berard-Chenu et al, 2022a). Indeed, there is no standard delineation of the ski resort's geographical domain.…”

Section: Case Study: the La Plagne Ski Resortmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulated hydrological effects of grooming and snowmaking in a ski resort on the local water balance

Morin,

François,

Réveillet

et al. 2023

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The presence of a ski resort modifies the snow cover at the local scale, due to snow management practices on ski pistes, especially grooming and snowmaking. Snow management exerts 2-fold effects on the local hydrological cycle, through (i) abstraction and transfer of water used for snowmaking, and (ii) changes in water runoff due to added snow mass through snowmaking and/or delayed melting of the snowpack due to snow grooming. This induces a local pressure on water resources, which has seldom been addressed in scientific studies hitherto. Here we introduce a method to compute the hydrological effects of snow management on ski pistes and we apply and illustrate its results for the case study of the La Plagne ski resort in the Northern French Alps. The approach mainly relies on snow cover modelling using the Crocus snow cover driven by SAFRAN reanalysis and climate projections. Model results are evaluated against in-situ hydrological observations and show that the modelling approach, although very simplified for many hydrological processes, provides relevant information and insights in terms of the influence of snow-related processes on water resources. Our study shows a visible impact of grooming, virtually eliminating snowmelt in winter, thus delaying the onset of snowmelt. This results is a lower snowmelt flux during the wintertime, low flow period, on the order of −10 % to −20 %, compensated by higher amounts when snow melts. While about 10 % of the water used for snowmaking is estimated to be lost by evaporation through the ice formation process from the liquid water droplets, we find that, in the case studied, the annual scale alteration of water resources is limited and estimated to be on the order of 1 % to 2 %. This is due to the fact that the amount of water used for snowmaking on ski pistes represents a fraction of 10 % to 20 % of total annual precipitation, that ski pistes cover typically 10 % of the surface area of catchments within which ski resorts are located, and that snowmaking equipment covers, in the case of La Plagne, 40 % of the surface area of ski pistes. Therefore, in this case, snowmaking mainly leads to a moderate shift in snow cover formation and snowmelt processes and plays, for example, a smaller role than the influence of future climate change on mountain hydrology. This study provides an initial overview of the influence of grooming and snowmaking on river flows in a mountain catchment, which can inform future studies on water management and climate change adaptation in areas with ski tourism facilities. This study does not discuss long-term sustainability challenges of ski tourism and other aspects of the local environmental impacts (landscape, biodiversity) of snow management, such as the construction and use of mountain water reservoirs and other earthworks in ski resorts.

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Section: Case Study: the La Plagne Ski Resortmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulated hydrological effects of grooming and snowmaking in a ski resort on the local water balance

Morin,

François,

Réveillet

et al. 2023

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…The wider ski resort area is defined by its gravitational envelope. This concept was introduced by François et al (2014) and later refined and implemented by further studies (François et al, 2016;Spandre et al, 2019;Berard-Chenu et al, 2022a). Indeed, there is no standard delineation of the ski resort domain.…”

Section: Geographical Representation Of the Ski Resort And Catchmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the hydrological disturbances induced by snow grooming and snowmaking in ski resorts: a case study in the French Alps

Morin

François

Réveillet

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Abstract. The presence of a ski resort modifies the snow cover at the local scale, due to snow management practices on ski slopes, especially grooming and snowmaking, which affect the quantity and physical behavior of the snowpack. Snow management exerts two-fold disturbances to the local hydrological cycle, through (i) uptake of water used for snowmaking, either directly after uptake or following temporary storage and (ii) changes in water runoff due to added snow mass through snowmaking and/or delayed melting of the snowpack due to snow grooming. This induces a local pressure on water resources that can be substantial in places and fuels controversies regarding the environmental impact of ski resorts. However, no scientific study to date has quantified the quantitative and qualitative disruption of the local hydrological cycle downstream, concerning both the modification of the local seasonality of the flows (e.g. low water periods) and possible modifications of the volume of water returned. Here we describe results from a case study quantifying the various components of the water budget of a small catchment (several km2), partly covered by a ski resort, in the Northern French Alps. Snow cover simulations, including the timing and amount of snowmelt, were performed using the Crocus snow cover model driven by the SAFRAN reanalysis and future climate scenarios, with and without accounting for grooming and snowmaking. Our study demonstrates a visible impact of snow grooming, through the quasi-suppression of winter snowmelt, leading to delayed snowmelt onset. Snowmaking leads to additional snowmelt amount, of the order of a few percent at the scale of the catchment, scaling with the fraction of the catchment covered by ski pistes, and the fraction of the ski pistes equipped with snowmaking. Under the situation of the case studied, there is no substantial further water loss due to snowmaking after the snow production itself, which induces about 10 % of evaporative loss of water used for snowmaking, related to the snow production process. Snowmaking mainly leads to a moderate shift in snow cover formation and snowmelt processes, to a smaller degree than the influence of future climate change on mountain hydrology. This study provides quantitative estimates of the impact of grooming and snowmaking on the hydrological regime of mountain catchments interesected by ski resorts, which can inform further studies addressing water management and climate change adaptation in mountain regions harbouring ski tourism infrastructure.

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“…An occasional lack of snow has always been contemplated by ski resort operators, due to the strong interannual variability of snow conditions [1,2,14,15]. A key concern is how often and to what extent such snow scarce situations occur, as recurring snow scarce winters threaten the long term economic sustainability of ski resorts [14,[16][17][18][19]. Here we adopt the definition of risk of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [20], i.e.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, the climatic impact-driver "snow cover decline" directly leads to a rise in the snow supply risk to ski tourism (Figure 1). Snowmaking, by contrast, is primarily designed to reduce the snow supply risk to ski tourism by decreasing the frequency of snow scarce conditions on ski pistes through the addition of machine-made snow [14,18,19,23]. There are multiple interactions between snowmaking, the local climate (snowmaking can only proceed if the temperature remains sufficiently low), the local environment (water ressources, local ecosystems), the broader socio-economic functioning of ski tourism within mountain areas, and the influence of ski tourism on the climate through greenhouse gas emissions [7,14,18,19,23] (see Figure 1).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Snowmaking, by contrast, is primarily designed to reduce the snow supply risk to ski tourism by decreasing the frequency of snow scarce conditions on ski pistes through the addition of machine-made snow [14,18,19,23]. There are multiple interactions between snowmaking, the local climate (snowmaking can only proceed if the temperature remains sufficiently low), the local environment (water ressources, local ecosystems), the broader socio-economic functioning of ski tourism within mountain areas, and the influence of ski tourism on the climate through greenhouse gas emissions [7,14,18,19,23] (see Figure 1). Europe (see Figure 2 for the included mountain ranges) is the largest global ski tourism market, with about 50% of the world's total ski resorts and over 80% of the world's ski resorts with more than 1 million skier visits (i.e.…”

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confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Climate change exacerbates snow-water-energy challenges for European ski tourism

François,

Samacoïts,

Bird

et al. 2023

Nat. Clim. Chang.

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Ski tourism is a substantial component of the economy of mountainous regions in Europe and highly vulnerable to snow scarcity, which increases due to climate change. However the climate change snow supply risk to ski tourism has not been quantified in a consistent way throughout Europe, including the influence and environmental footprint of snowmaking. Here we show that the snow supply risk to ski tourism increases with global warming level, heterogeneously within and across mountain areas and countries. Without snowmaking, 53% and 98% of the 2,234 ski resorts studied in 28 European countries are projected at very high risk for snow supply under global warming of 2 • C and 4 • C, respectively. By contrast, assuming a snowmaking fractional coverage of 50% Operating costs

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Past changes in natural and managed snow reliability of French Alps ski resorts from 1961 to 2019

Cited by 5 publications

References 45 publications

Simulated hydrological effects of grooming and snowmaking in a ski resort on the local water balance

Simulated hydrological effects of grooming and snowmaking in a ski resort on the local water balance

Quantifying the hydrological disturbances induced by snow grooming and snowmaking in ski resorts: a case study in the French Alps

Climate change exacerbates snow-water-energy challenges for European ski tourism

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