FS 3.201: Treasures from the past

Mountain regions of the world undergo drastic changes that are visible across system components. Our methods for quantifying these changes have become more complex and allow for higher resolution than ever before. While changes are drastic, they often occur at subtle rates and particularly past information is limited. Hence, long-term baseline data is crucial to set the current changes in perspective. While several very useful base resources exist, created with immense personal and financial investment, other data are stored in archives, cumbersome to digitize and not easily accessible to the public. In this session we invite contributions across disciplines that have the exploitation of hitherto un- or little used historical data in common, be it historical aerial photographs, weather observations, sketches, paintings or traditional written sources. We propose to highlight the potential of such historical datasets to improve our system understanding of vulnerable mountain environments. In addition, such data provide a diverse insight into the interaction between people and the mountain environment, which in turn allows discussions from different perspectives on the human perception of mountain environments through time. We believe that by lifting these archival treasures, by making them accessible in a standardized, state-of-the-art manner and by creating a scientific discourse across disciplinary boundaries, their use can be multiplied and their value increased.