Documentation of natural processes in the Gesäuse National Park: Pilot project avalanche lawn

IUCN Category II National Parks are specifically designated to ensure long-term large-scale ecological processes with their characteristic dynamism and species configuration. The present study attempts to establish a systematic nature process in the Gesäuse National Park and illustrate it using an example. The aim is to develop methodological foundations for a national park-wide natural process inventory. Due to extraordinary relief energies, many natural processes in the Gesäuse National Park are characterised by complex disturbance dynamics, which determine life forms, growth forms and species sets. These were examined exemplarily using the example of an avalanche system in the eastern Gesäuse (Kalktal). Building on a theoretical concept developed for this pilot project, a vegetation ecology survey in combination with UAV aerial images and a comprehensive analysis of the data collected attempted to describe the avalanche system. The patterns of vegetation societies occurring in the system can be represented in a spatial and temporal context with the disturbance regime. Abstracted, a stringing regime can be characterised by the parameters intensity and frequency. The intensity is measured by the effects on growth and life forms and, subsequently, on species sets. The relationships between disturbance and plant society can be represented in a spatial and a temporal dynamogram. Similar dynamograms will be developed in the coming years for other nature processes in the National Park in order to provide an overall perspective.