IAG Photo & Video Contest – Overall Winners 2024

In accordance with the rules of the IAG Photo & Video Contest, the IAG Selection Committee voted to select the Overall Winners of 2024 – for both the Photo and the Video Contest ! They will be granted with 50% reduced registration fees for a given IAG international or regional conference. Congratulations to both of them! Find their contributions below.

The Overall Winners in 2024 are:

  • for the Photo Contest: Jana Eichel from The Netherlands, for her photo of the Turtmann glacier (Valais, Switzerland)!
  • for the Video Contest: Yuichi Hayakawa from Japan, for his video of the Shichimenzan Kuzure landslide (Japan)!

 


A glimpse into a glacial landscape of the future

by Jana Eichel, The Netherlands

Over the past two decades, Turtmann glacier (Valais, Switzerland), has been strongly retreating, revealing a glimpse into a glacial landscape of the future. A few years ago, large parts of the steep shaly bedrock in the picture were still covered by glacial ice. Now, glacial meltwater cascades down it on its way to the floodplain. On hot summer days, remaining glacier ice of the former icefall is breaking loose and can be heard crashing down the slope. Strong gullying processes dissect the steep lateral moraine during on-going paraglacial adjustment. At the gentler distal slope, however, plants are starting to colonize. Typical “greening” is substituted here by yellow coloring from prevalent Anthyllis spp. flowers. Small larch trees (Larix decidua) start to appear, further stabilizing this formerly eroding slope and turning it into a biodiverse alpine ecosystem.

 


Shichimenzan Kuzure landslide

by Yuichi Hayakawa, Japan

Located in the sub-basin of the Fuji River watershed in the Southern Japanese Alps, the large landslide “Shichimenzan Kuzure” covers an area of 3.5 hectares and continues to supply a huge amount of sediment into the rivers every year. It is not clear when exactly this landslide was formed, but according to the historical documents of the Shichimenzan Keishinin Temple, it seems to have already existed at least as early as the 1600s. The Southern Japanese Alps are one of the fastest uplifting areas in Japan, with entire mountains rising more than 4 meters every 1,000 years. At the same time, it is one of the areas with the highest erosion rates in Japan. In the long term, although seemingly unchanging, the mountain landscapes are constantly evolving, and the Mt. Shichimenzan landslide is a visible manifestation of such “movement” of the mountains.