Matsch Valley, South Tyrol, Italy

• The Matsch Valley is one of the many side  valleys  branching off the main valley, Vinschgau, situated in the westernmost part of South Tyrol (the northernmost province in Italy). Our main village, Matsch, is located at 1600 meters and has a population of 458 people. That’s right, it’s pretty small! The  catchment  extends over 90 km2 and spans from its highest point at 3739 meters (Palla Bianca) to the lowest at 950 meters in the town of Schluderns and covers all  alpine  and  subalpine  regions.

There aren’t too many villages in the  valley  because it is primarily used for farming. The range of land-use types is representative of agricultural practices in  mountainous  regions of the Alps, including “heavily  cultivated  fields, poor- and high-yield meadows,  pastureland  and typical low-density larch forests.”

The Matsch Valley is one of the driest valleys in the Alps with an average of 525 millimeters of  precipitation  per year. This  valley  represents a  closed catchment . Palla Bianca, which is part of the Matscher Ferner (Matsch  glacier ) closes the  valley  off to the northeast. The presence of the  glacier  at the  valley  head provides water in form of glacial  runoff . This is how the  valley  receives most of its water; then the Saldur River drains the  catchment .

A  catchment  is an area from which surface runoff is carried away by a single drainage system. 

Because the Matsch Valley is  Alpine , the mean temperature is only 5.6° Celsius (42° Fahrenheit).

The geology is composed of  metamorphic  rocks and the  ecosystem  is full of temperate  coniferous  forests, larch forests,  montane  grass and  shrub-lands  as well as rivers, lakes and the  glacier . 

The Matsch  glacier  isn’t the only one in the region! Click on the arrows in the upper right corner to check out this map and see how many are present. The purple cylinder is the region we’re studying right now, the green dots are  glaciers  in Austria, the blue dots are  glaciers  in Italy and the red dots are  glaciers  in Switzerland.

Before we can learn about the Matsch Valley specifically, we need to learn 5 key characteristics all  mountains  share: these explain why  mountain  systems can be so fundamentally different from each other. 

•  Mountains  are  biophysically  and culturally complex systems (MC1).

• They supply abundant and essential  ecosystem  services (MC2).

• They are prone to devastating  hazards , such as  floods ,  debris  flows,  avalanches , and  wildfires  (MC3).

• They are physically  remote  and isolated (MC4).

• They are often socially, economically, and politically  marginalized  (MC5).

Remember to click on the following photos to magnify them!

In the Matsch Valley, one  mountain  characteristic was identified as very important: the cross-scale  ecosystem  services.

 Paradoxes  are also known as “wicked problems,” or a problem that doesn’t have a clear definition and rarely has a solution. When we think about how to protect  mountains  and  mountain  communities like in the Matsch Valley, we often come across these  paradoxes . A few of the challenges we face as we try to solve these problems are:

•  Mountains  are resource-rich, but income poor (P1).

•  Mountain   policies  are often made by outsiders (P2).

• They are remote but vulnerable to global change (P3).

• They experience multi-directional  demographic  shifts (P4).

• A diverse range of actors are drawn to them (P5).

•  Mountains  require  fine-scale  data, but those data are often lacking (P6).

A biome is a group of similar ecosystems with the same general abiotic factors and primary producers. This can easily be seen with a community of plants and animals. 

• The Saldur River inflicts natural  hazards  such as potential water  scarcity ,  floods ,  landslides , and  debris  flow.

• The animals have a hard time with the  hazards  as well. For example, 20% of the animals in the region suffer because of water pollution.

• Some of the  endangered  animals we can find in the South Tyrol region are moles, lizards, snakes, frogs, toads, salamanders, mollusks, insects, beetles and butterflies. 

Here is a chart of the 13  ecosystem  services! Which do you think are the most and least important to the Matsch Valley?

People in Matsch Valley primarily make a living from ranching and tourism. The land is divided into agricultural regions and protected areas. In July 2017, the town of Matsch became the first "Bergsteigerdorf" (mountaineering village) in South Tyrol adding significant value to our town as a destination for "soft tourism".

Learn more about  Bergsteigerdorf 

• In 2017, Matsch became the first Bergsteigerdorf in South Tyrol. “Bergsteigerdorf” means “mountaineering town” in German. This means people visit the town so they can be closer to the  mountains . It is a form of “soft tourism.”

There were a lot of conflicts in South Tyrol. One family ruled the Matsch Valley from the 12th-15th century, and in that time had many problems with the bishops and the church as well as other families in the region.

• The Austrian counts of Trapp took control of the Matsch Valley and their descendants held their claim to the land all the way until 1825. 

• Press  drivers  of change that are very important to the Matsch Valley include:
•  Policies 
•  Glacier  melt
• Potential for water scarcity

Ulrike Tappeiner University Professor. 

Head of the Research Group: Ecosystem and Landscape Ecology at the University of Innsbruck;

Head of Institute for Alpine Environment at Eurac Research 

Research Interests: ecosystem and landscape and  sustainability  for ecology of  mountain  environments with special focus on global change, biogeochemical cycles, functional  biodiversity .

Veronika Fontana

EURAC research, Institute for Alpine Environment, senior researcher, LT(S)ER Matsch/Mazia site coordinator

Research Interests: vegetation ecology, Ecosystem service quantification and modeling

Georg Niedrist

EURAC research, Institute for Alpine Environment, senior researcher

Research Interests: vegetation ecology, impact of  climate  and land use change on  mountain  ecosystems

Georg Leitinger

University of Innsbruck, Institute of Ecology, Associate Professor

Research Interests:  Hydrology , landscape ecology

Sponsors and Funding

Autonomous Province of Bolzano-South Tyrol (Autonome Provinz Bozen-Südtirol/ Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano-Alto Adige)

University of Innsbruck (Universität Innsbruck)

Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

Key Publications:

Social Identity and Intergroup Relations by Henri Tajfel

 LTSER Website 

"Matschertal Ist Internationales Forschungsgebiet” by Südtirol News

Niedrist G., Tasser E., Bertoldi G., della Chiesa S., Obojes N., Egarter Vigl L., Tappeiner U., (2016): Down to future: Transplanted  mountain  meadows react with increasing phytomass or shifting  species  composition. Flora 224, 172-182.