AO1 (5 marks)/AO2 (15 marks)

Marking instructions
Markers must apply the descriptors in line with the general marking guidance and the qualities outlined in the levels-based mark scheme below. Responses that demonstrate only AO1 without any AO2 should be awarded marks as follows:

Level 1 AO1 performance: 1 mark
Level 2 AO1 performance: 2 marks
Level 3 AO1 performance: 3 marks
Level 4 AO1 performance: 4–5 marks.

Indicative content guidance
The indicative content below is not prescriptive and candidates are not required to include all of it. Other relevant material not suggested below must also be credited. Relevant points may include:
AO1

Human activities (leisure and tourism, reservoir construction, urbanisation) are threats to glaciated landscapes.
Human activity can also degrade the landscape and fragile ecology of glaciated landscapes (soil erosion, trampling, landslides, deforestation).
Glaciated landscapes face varying degrees of threat from natural hazards (avalanches and glacial outburst floods).
Global warming is having a major impact on glacial mass balances, which in turn risks disruption of the hydrological cycle (meltwater, river discharge, sediment yield, water quality).

AO2

A key reason why tourism poses the greatest threat to active glaciated landscapes is the increase in tourism. Arctic tourism has increased from 1 million in 1990’s to over 2 million in 2017. As most arrive by ship, the Arctic landscape has been degraded by the building of new port facilities such as at Honningsvag and roads such as the E69 for visitors to see North Cape.
Furthermore Arctic tourism to Svalbard has also rapidly increased leading to damage to the pristine Artic landscape of Ny-Alesund and Magdalena Bay – so much so that in 2015 large cruise ships were
banned from these pristine Arctic sites.
Moreover, other Arctic areas are also suffering damage to their fragile landscapes - Greenland and Alaska have also seen large increases in tourist pressure with Greenland recording increases of 400% in visitor
numbers and Alaska over 1 million by 2017. This has led to degradation and damage of these Artic landscapes particularly by the use of snowmobiles in honeypot sites such as Glacier Bay National
Park.
In addition, trekking in summer in popular sites such as Denali National Park has led to pleas for hikers not to GPS coordinates of their hikes to reduce the impact of trails on the landscape.
Yet tourism to other polar landscapes has, to now, been less of a threat. Although there are 40,000 visitors to Antarctica per year, due to protocols adopted in 1966 and subsequently added to in the
Antarctic Treaty there is now a framework to manage tourism in Antarctica reducing the potential for damage to the landscape.
Furthermore, strict protocols have meant that all waste is removed from this area, even waste water, and so any damage is being minimized.
However, there are concerns as the tourism is both spatially and temporally concentrated in Antarctica with concerns raised over the impact on the Patriot Hills area where heated tents and a runway are constructed every year.
Importantly relict glaciated landscapes are also under threat from tourism with trekking causing damage to the fragile mountain ecosystems with some plant communities such as tundra flower meadows only needing 25 people a week before damage can occur.
Mountain biking and pony trekking are also thought to have even greater impacts on relict landscapes particularly in those areas of steep fragile soils such as the Lake District.
It is important to remember, however, that other human activities also pose threats to both active and relict glaciated landscapes. Deforestation on exposed slopes has been found to cause increased damage to the landscapes such as in the Canadian Rockies whilst over cultivation and overgrazing is also thought to cause damage to the landscapes in Andean areas.
Furthermore urbanization, mineral exploitation and reservoir construction also pose threats to glaciated landscapes with pollution and toxic waste being threats from hastily built urban areas and the damage to the landscape of glaciated areas through mineral exploitation and reservoir construction often taking decades to
recover.
There are also natural threats such as avalanches, landslides and glacial outburst floods which are a threat too glaciated landscapes such as the 2016 landslide in Glacier Bay when a 1⁄2 mile square rock
face collapsed and flowed more than six miles.
Climate change is also thought to be a threat to glaciated landscapes with recent studies showing that most glaciers are currently retreating with only maritime glaciers in Scandinavia showing glacial advances.
This retreat will threaten landscapes due to the changes in the hydrological cycle that this will bring as well as the increased chance of glacial outburst floods.
Overall, tourism can pose a significant threat to both active and relict glaciated landscapes to a greater or lesser degree. It can be thought of a more serious threat than other anthropogenic threats such as
urbanization, forestry and reservoir construction due the scale of the threat with millions of visitors to active landscapes and tens of millions to relict landscapes. Yet careful management can reduce these
threats such as the protocols adopted in Antarctica as well as the sensitive management of National Parks. Natural threats such as landslides can be considered as to be less of a threat as they are naturally occurring processes that occur in glaciated landscapes and so are part of the processes that that make such landscapes distinctive. Yet, the impacts of climate change could be the biggest threat as it will threaten most of the glaciated areas in the world but at present the exact scale of the threat has yet to accurately quantified. So at present tourism probably does pose the greatest threat to glaciated
landscapes.

Accept other evaluations of the impacts of tourism on active and relict glaciated areas.

Managment of Glacial Landscapes (Edexcel A Level Geography)

Topic Questions

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