Abava Valley
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The Abava Valley is the valley of the Abava River in
Talsi Talsi (; , ) (population 11,371) is a town in the Courland region of Latvia. It is the administrative centre of Talsi Municipality. It is nicknamed the "green pearl of Courland". Etymology It is believed that the name is derived from an old Livo ...
,
Tukums Tukums (; ; ) is a town in Latvia and serves as the administrative center of Tukums Municipality. It is located in the eastern part of the historical region of Courland, and with more than 16,000 inhabitants Tukums is the 13th largest settlem ...
, and
Kuldīga Kuldīga () () is a town in the Courland region of Latvia, in the western part of the country. It is the center of Kuldīga Municipality with a population of approximately 13,500. Kuldīga was first mentioned in 1242. It joined the Hanseatic L ...
municipalities,
Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...
, in the historical Kurzeme region. Following inclusion on the
World Monuments Fund World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and training ...
's Watch List of endangered heritage sites, on 20 June 1996 the Republic of Latvia designated the Abava Valley as specially protected cultural territory and on 3 January 2005 it was submitted for inclusion in the
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
World Heritage World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...
List. The valley is the route of the historical road from
Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...
to
Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...
and Northern Germany, and as such, it is rich in historical and cultural monuments. In its vicinity there are 16 protected nature monuments, such as Devil's Stone, Devil's Cave and Chambers of Mara, five rocks, seven rapids and three historical estate parks.


Geology and formation

The Abava Valley is the most striking segment of the Abava–Slocene spillway, a meltwater channel carved during the last ( Weichselian) glaciation. It extends for over 60 km from Tukums westwards towards Renda, varies between 0.7 km and 2.5 km in width and reaches depths of up to 52 m near Sabile and 47 m near
Kandava Kandava (; ; ) is a town in Tukums Municipality, in the Courland region of Latvia. It had a population of 3,656 people as of January 2020. History Livonian Crusade The territory of modern Kandava was inhabited by Finnic tribes until the 10th ce ...
. Beneath a veneer of
Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...
deposits—chiefly
glacial till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...
and glaciofluvial sand and gravel—lie Upper Devonian bedrocks composed of interbedded
sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...
s,
clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...
s,
dolomites The Dolomites ( ), also known as the Dolomite Mountains, Dolomite Alps or Dolomitic Alps, are a mountain range in northeastern Italy. They form part of the Southern Limestone Alps and extend from the River Adige in the west to the Piave Va ...
and
marl Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, Clay minerals, clays, and silt. When Lithification, hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae. M ...
s. Erosional terraces are common along the valley sides, which are deeply incised into these older sediments by both the main stem of the Abava River and its
tributaries A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream ('' main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which the ...
.


Landslide hazard

Slope instability is widespread throughout the steep valley sides, particularly between Kandava and Sabile, where both natural and anthropogenic factors have triggered numerous landslides. Kukemilks's inventory compared legacy 1:25,000 stereoscopic aerial photographs and hillshade models derived from 1:10,000
topographic map In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large- scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines (connecting points of equal elevation), but histori ...
s against four days of detailed field mapping. He found that only about one quarter of the
landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, rockslips or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslides ...
s spotted in aerial photographs could be confirmed on the ground—and hillshade maps were even less reliable—while many small or heavily vegetated failures went entirely undetected without field surveys. Observed triggers include Late-glacial paraglacial adjustment, heavy
rainstorm Rain is a form of precipitation where water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. ...
s, rapid
snowmelt In hydrology, snowmelt is surface runoff produced from melting snow. It can also be used to describe the period or season during which such runoff is produced. Water produced by snowmelt is an important part of the annual water cycle in many part ...
, river-bank undercutting and, in one case, material removal during road reconstruction. Landslide density here is lower than in the nearby Gauja Valley—reflecting the greater resistance of dolomite and sandstone
bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bed ...
—but remains high enough to warrant risk zoning, especially where regional roads and urban areas lie at the foot of the slopes.


References

{{Protected areas of Latvia Nature parks in Latvia Valleys of Latvia