An app for historic hiking trails

Suonen are my specialty,” he says nonchalantly at the start of our conversation, as though it was nothing unusual to be an expert in a certain area at the age of 26.  But sure enough, he doesn’t have to do much to convince me during our interview: after barely an hour I know I am sitting across from one of the few experts in a literally uncharted field. But this is exactly what he wants to change. Johannes Gerber, a Master student of Geomatics Engineering and Planning, likes to share his knowledge. He runs an external pageinformative websitecall_made about the historic Suonen irrigation systems in the Valais and has published two books on the topic: a guide with hiking tips and routes and a revised edition of the authoritative book Die Suonen des Wallis, which gives an overview of the history of these traditional irrigation systems (which are called bisses in the French-speaking lower Valais) as well as technical background information.

A personal interest as a thesis topic

Now he has topped it off with a free Suonen application for Android smartphones, which he has developed in his Master project at the Chair of Geoinformation Engineering. “I’ve basically integrated my hobby into my studies,” he says with a grin; then he sums up the basic idea and contents of his app in a few sentences. The main goal of the software is to support Suonen hikers with practical, site-specific (map) services and answer questions such as: which canal am I walking along right now and what general information about it (such as length, year of construction, route description) is available? What other canals can be found within a radius of 200 metres to 10 kilometres? How do they run through the terrain? What other Suonen hikes could I go on in this region according to my preferences on length, level of inclination and level of difficulty? And finally, how can I get to the starting point of my chosen hiking trail with public transport? Gerber’s motivation to create this app was clear and simple: “I always wished I had something like that when I was exploring Suonen trails,” he says.

A fascination since childhood

Gerber’s fascination with this admittedly “unusual topic” was awakened during childhood hiking trips with his parents. He was captured by those “lazy little streams” that meander through gorges and rock walls, vineyards and orchards, fields and meadows – often on quite adventurous paths. Another reason for his fascination was that these irrigation channels bear witness to the culture and civilisation of the Swiss alpine regions. Many canals still serve to bring meltwater from the glaciers down onto cultivated land. 

So it is no wonder that Johannes Gerber is enthusiastic about his long-standing favourite topic. “The control paths along the Suonen are perfect for hiking even on hot summer days,” he says. This is because most of the canals run almost horizontally at a gentle slope and are bordered with shady trees. “And of course the mountain water cools you down when you need it.” In his academic life, Gerber wrote about the Suonen not only for a school project and his Matura thesis, but also for his Bachelor thesis.

Field tests in the Valais

After having accumulated so much knowledge, it was obvious that he should use it for his Master project and develop a mobile smartphone application. Since he already had the results of years of extensive research and his regularly updated online database at hand, he spent the whole development phase focusing solely on the programming of the application, which was sometimes “an unexpectedly difficult task”. It took more than 30 hours to implement an initial Google map, and the issue of meridian convergence – the fact that the lines of longitude converge at the poles and that the coordinate system is therefore not right-angled – posed a great challenge for spatial selection. What didn’t work out was his attempt to integrate a weather icon into his app: “Unfortunately, the available online services such as MeteoSwiss did not offer this possibility.” However, Gerber is very pleased with the end result. Extensive field tests in the Valais have proved the usefulness of the outdoor application in terms of map functionality, orientation and site location. A disadvantage the app has is that it depends on an unbroken Internet connection, but this is something Gerber wants to improve in a future version.

Although he has made the app available for anyone to download on his external pagewebsitecall_made, Gerber is probably its most active user so far. However, this could change very soon – at the latest when the Valais Suonen association’s UNESCO application is accepted. Then Johannes Gerber will be the first to pop the champagne corks when the traditional irrigation channels are inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage list.