Advertisement

You are browsing the archive for swiss glacier hydropower Archives - From a Glacier's Perspective.

March 7, 2017

Basodino Glacier, Switzerland Mass Balance Loss & Hydropower

Basodino Glacier in August and September of 2016 illustrating the upward shift of the snowline in the 15 days between the Landsat (left) and Sentinel (right) image. purple dots mark snowline.  Basodino Glacier is a small northeast facing slope glacier in the southern Swiss Alps.  The glacier is in the Ticino River watershed and supplies the Robiei Hydropower system. The glacier is in the same basin as Cavagnoli Glacier, which …

Read More >>


June 5, 2012

Gietro Glacier Retreat and Hydropower, Switzerland

Gietro Glacier may sound like a type of italian dessert, but this glacier has a deadly history. During periods of advance the glacier blocked off the valley of Mauvoisin. Failure of the glacier ice dam led to large flood events in 1595 and 1818 that lead to the loss of many lives in the valley below. Today the Mauvoisin Dam one of the 10 largest concrete arch dams in the …

Read More >>


May 5, 2011

Oberaar Glacier Retreat and Hydropower

The Oberaar Glacier at the headwaters of the Aare River is one of the key glaciers whose runoff feeds the complex hydropower system built by Kraftwerke Oberhasli (KWO) from the 1930’s thorugh 1979. The Glacier ended in the artificial lake Oberaarsee created by damming the glacier outflow in 1932. Oberaarsee (O) is dominantly a glacier fed reservoir, which is evident in this 2002 image from Jürg Alean This dam is …

Read More >>