Water and High Mountains

Abstract

As a landscape element, water is shaping the mountains at all altitudes, whether in liquid or solid form. Below the altitude of glaciers all high mountains of the Earth have been formed by flowing water, derived from the melting of snow and glaciers, from the runoff of precipitation at the surface, or from fountains. For humans, water in high mountains has various functions. Streams, lakes, and cascading waterfalls became central to the romantic image of the high mountains in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which even persists until today. For others, the water of high mountains is an inexhaustible source of energy, a drinking water reservoir for millions, or an ideal environment for kayaking and river rafting. Large differences in height occurring in conjunction with deeper situated layers of unconsolidated sediment from debris or moraines also present a dangerous torrent hazard which has been threatening the lives and belongings of people in the mountains since immemorial time. To rectify this, as well as the flooding of major rivers in valleys, the world’s civil engineers have taken measures. Therefore, the shaping of the high mountains by water is in many regions often followed directly by landscape shaping of humans.