Limited impacts of global warming on rockfall activity at low elevations: Insights from two calcareous cliffs from the French Prealps

• Published in: Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment
• Main Authors: Mainieri, Robin, Eckert, Nicolas, Corona, Christophe, Lopez-Saez, Jerome, Stoffel, Markus, Bourrier, Franck
• Other Authors: Ecosystèmes montagnards (UR EMGR), Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA), Laboratoire des EcoSystèmes et des Sociétés en Montagne (UR LESSEM), Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA), Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (IGE), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP ), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA), Erosion torrentielle neige et avalanches (UR ETGR (ETNA)), Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), Institute for Environmental Sciences Geneva (ISE), Université de Genève = University of Geneva (UNIGE), Laboratoire de Géographie Physique et Environnementale (GEOLAB), Université Blaise Pascal - Clermont-Ferrand 2 (UBP)-Institut Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société (IR SHS UNILIM), Université de Limoges (UNILIM)-Université de Limoges (UNILIM)-Université Clermont Auvergne 2017-2020 (UCA 2017-2020 )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Clermont Auvergne (UCA), Dendrolab.ch Bern, Institute of Geological Sciences Bern, Universität Bern = University of Bern = Université de Berne (UNIBE)-Universität Bern = University of Bern = Université de Berne (UNIBE), ANR-15-IDEX-02
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2022
• Subjects: Rockfall; tree-ring reconstruction; climate change; calcareous French Alps; [SDE.IE]Environmental Sciences/Environmental Engineering; [SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio]; permafrost
• Online Access: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-03790287; https://doi.org/10.1177/03091333221107624

International audience In mountainous regions, global warming will likely affect the frequency and magnitude of geomorphic processes. This is also the case for rockfall, one of the most common mass movements on steep slopes. Rainfall, snowmelt, or freeze-thaw cycles are the main drivers of rockfall activity, rockfall hazards are thus generally thought to become more relevant in a context of climate change. At high elevations, unequivocal relationships have been found between increased rockfall activity, permafrost thawing and global warming. By contrast, below the permafrost limit, studies are scarcer. They mostly rely on short or incomplete rockfall records, and have so far failed to identify climatically induced trends in rockfall records. Here, using a dendrogeomorphic approach, we develop two continuous 60-year long chronologies of rockfall activity in the Vercors and Diois massifs (French Alps); both sites are located clearly below the permafrost limit. Uncertainties related to the decreasing number of trees available back in time were quantified based on a detailed mapping of trees covering the slope across time. Significant multiple regression models with reconstructed rockfalls as predictors and local changes in climatic conditions since 1959 extracted from the SAFRAN reanalysis dataset as predictants were fitted to investigate the potential impacts of global warming on rockfall activity at both sites. In the Vercors massif, the strong increase in reconstructed rockfall can be ascribed to the recolonization of the forest stand and the over-representation of young trees; changes that are observed should not therefore be ascribed to climatic fluctuations. In the Diois massif, we identify annual precipitation totals and mean temperatures as statistically significant drivers of rockfall activity but no significant increasing trend was identified in the reconstruction. All in all, despite the stringency of our approach, we cannot therefore confirm that rockfall hazard will increase as a result of global ...