Disentangling the impacts of exogenous disturbances on forest stands to assess multi-centennial tree-ring reconstructions of avalanche activity in the upper Goms Valley (Canton of Valais, Switzerland)

Favillier, Adrien; Guillet, Sébastien; Morel, Pauline; Corona, Christophe; Lopez Saez, Jérôme; Eckert, Nicolas; Ballesteros Canovas, Juan Antonio; Peiry, Jean-Luc; Stoffel, Markus

doi:10.1016/j.quageo.2017.09.001

Scientific article

English

Disentangling the impacts of exogenous disturbances on forest stands to assess multi-centennial tree-ring reconstructions of avalanche activity in the upper Goms Valley (Canton of Valais, Switzerland)

Contributors

Favillier, Adrien; Guillet, Sébastien; Morel, Pauline; Corona, Christophe; Lopez Saez, Jérôme; Eckert, Nicolas; Ballesteros Canovas, Juan Antonio; Peiry, Jean-Luc; Stoffel, Markus

Published in

Quaternary Geochronology, vol. 42, p. 89-104

Publication date

2017

Abstract

The purpose of dendrogeomorphic analyses is to amplify the signal related to the geomorphic process under investigation, and to minimize the noise induced by other signals in the tree-ring series. Yet, to date, no study accounts specifically for interferences induced by climate conditions or exogenous disturbances and which can, potentially, affect the quality of tree-ring based process reconstructions. In this paper, we develop a specific procedure allowing evaluation of the quality of reconstructions in five avalanche paths at Oberwald (Swiss Alps). The study is based on possible interferences between snow avalanches, climatic conditions and ecological signals in the tree-ring series. Analysis of past events was based on tree-ring series from 564 heavily affected, multi-centennial European larch trees (Larix decidua Mill.) growing near or next to the avalanche paths. A total of 2389 growth disturbances, such as scars, tangential rows of traumatic resin ducts, compression wood as well as abrupt growth suppressions or releases, were identified in the samples, indicating 43 destructive snow avalanches since AD 1780. At the same time, 31 potential events, which were detected with the conventional Shroder index value, were rejected from the final reconstruction due to potentially strong interferences between the different signals. This high rejection rate underlines the necessity to systematicallyeand carefullyediscriminate ecological and climatic noise from avalanche-related disturbances. This discrimination is even more so crucial as a significant proportion of dendrogeomorphic studies in the Alps are based on L. decidua trees which are cyclically affected by larch budmoth outbreaks.

Keywords

Snow avalanche
Tree rings

UNIGE affiliation entities

Citation (ISO format)

FAVILLIER, Adrien et al. Disentangling the impacts of exogenous disturbances on forest stands to assess multi-centennial tree-ring reconstructions of avalanche activity in the upper Goms Valley (Canton of Valais, Switzerland). In: Quaternary Geochronology, 2017, vol. 42, p. 89–104. doi: 10.1016/j.quageo.2017.09.001

Article (Published version)

Identifiers

PID : unige:100147
DOI : 10.1016/j.quageo.2017.09.001

Additional URL for this publication

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1871101417300602

Journal ISSN

1871-1014

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Creation

06/12/2017 21:46:00

First validation

06/12/2017 21:46:00

Update

27/06/2025 11:48:44

Status update

27/06/2025 11:48:44

Last indexation

27/06/2025 11:50:40

Disentangling the impacts of exogenous disturbances on forest stands to assess multi-centennial tree-ring reconstructions of avalanche activity in the upper Goms Valley (Canton of Valais, Switzerland)

Contributors

Published in

Publication date

Abstract

Keywords

UNIGE affiliation entities

Citation (ISO format)

Main files (1)

Identifiers

Additional URL for this publication

Journal ISSN

Technical informations

Creation

First validation

Update

Status update

Last indexation