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.[Show full abstract]
![[PDF]](/themes/LURA/images/mimes/b_pdf.png "PDF file"){kind=small}
