The Application of Geographic Information Science (GIS) for Data Synthesis and Evaluation of Remote High Mountain Lakes in the Lake District Tyrol (Austria & Italy)

Abstract

In the EU-project EMERGE 5160 high alpine lakes are analysed for a pan-European regionalisation. In this study 465 Tyrolean lakes are selected to establish and test a method for this purpose. For an initial grouping of these lakes we created a GIS-dataset with 28 geomorphologic parameters (e.g. lake and catchment area, exposition, geology, soil, vegetation). Principal component analyses were used to identify the main gradients of variants within the large GIS-dataset. To assess the geomorphologic and chemical properties we undertook multivariate statistical analysis. The resulting variables, explaining variability in chemistry, were selected for grouping and regionalization. Combination of GIS and chemistry allowed an environmental evaluation over large areas. Major groups of lakes could be defined by geology, elevation and lake/catchment specific morphometry.