Franz Josef Glacier access road : security of road-end facilities

Abstract

Lack of adequate information on the past behaviour of the upper Waiho river and valley makes reliable prediction of the nature, magnitude and timing of future erosive and depositional events extremely difficult. Management of facilities in the valley requires such information; it is recommended that a monitoring programme be commenced immediately, and that information of this nature presently in DoC archives be catalogued and organised into a historical record. The information kiosk and car park at the Franz Josef Glacier access road end are presently at significant risk from either or both of river bed aggradation and river bank erosion. The toilet building at this site is less at risk. The two viable strategies for reducing this risk are relocating the kiosk and developing additional car park space elsewhere, or protecting the river bank against erosion. The former is much more likely to be effective than the latter. In the short to medium term (0 to 5 years or so), adequate security could be attained by moving the kiosk about 50 m back along the road. In the longer term (5 to 50 years) it is possible that further substantial aggradation could necessitate further relocation of kiosk, toilet and car park to a significantly higher terrace by the 1894 terminal position. In the longer term the viability of facilities at the present road end could be subject to external factors such as maintaining the access road farther down the valley.