Livigno – an Italian Ski Resort

Location: High Italian Alps close to Swiss border

Improved winter accessibility when tunnel built to Switzerland. The ‘floodgates’ of tourism opened. Roads to rest of Italy get blocked in winter

Road tunnel – impact on landforms

3.5km long and 2.5m wide, the southern end of this tunnel is 100m higher than the north.

A useful link, but a bit of a challenge (to cyclists) if traffic is heavy.

The tunnel is on the border between Switzerland and Italy.

The Livigno valley is mostly water, and the bits that aren't are concrete. Human impact on valley!

The snow roof protection of the road from rockfalls and avalanches – see impact of road on landforms and processes.

Further up the valley in switzerland the Swiss built a dam to create an HEP Scheme and reservoir. See human impacts in picture.

Road on dam?

Avoid the cars and huge concrete pillars! Human impact of road

Good for skiing:

Wide flat valley floor (room for building expansion)

and gentle valley sides (easy slopes for ski beginners)

High Alps up to 3000m. So a long Ski season (good point).

High slopes give more difficult pistes (for better skiers)

Spot the human impacts!

Livigno offers 30 ski lifts with a capacity of 40.000 skiers per hour. There are 110 km of slopes for the most part with fantastic views of the Alps.

There were about twenty ski lifts at the Livigno resort, and several of them were gondolas. This lift allowed about 8 people per gondola, including ski gear. It offered a really nice view….

In winter skiing dominates. With up to 30,000 visitors staying each week.

Tourism is now the dominant industry with hotels, restaurants, bars, shops. Up to to 7,500 worker inhabitants.

The town stretches 12kms down one major road. About 2,500 inhabitants in the past

In the ‘old days’ pre-1970 the area was very much agricultural with ‘transhumance’. Grazing up on the Alpine slopes in summer and down to the valley floor for winter.

                                                                                             

            

Summer – hay timing

It is a small town in the bosom of the Italian Alps, and is a popular ski resort town in the winter, as well as offering mountain biking, hiking, fishing and other outdoor sports throughout the rest of the year …