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Quantifying the Protective Capacity of Forests against Snow Avalanches

Quantifying the Protective Capacity of Forests against Snow Avalanches. Peter Bebi and Perry Bartelt Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, SLF Davos. IDRC 2008 Davos, August 2008. Mountain forests of the Alps – an overview. Dischma 1927. Dischma 2005.

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Quantifying the Protective Capacity of Forests against Snow Avalanches

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  1. Quantifying the Protective Capacity of Forests against Snow Avalanches Peter Bebi and Perry Bartelt Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, SLF Davos IDRC 2008 Davos, August 2008

  2. Mountain forests of the Alps – an overview Dischma 1927 Dischma 2005 Protection forests cover large areas (c. 25% of all forests in CH) Qualtiy of protection is spatially and temporally variable IDRC 2008 Davos, August 2008

  3. Mountain forests of the Alps – an overview IDRC 2008 Davos, August 2008

  4. Mountain forests of the Alps – an overview Blowdown Bark beetle Fire Avalanches Disturbances may change protective effect drastically Management of mountain forests – between cost-efficiency and maximal risk reduction IDRC 2008 Davos, August 2008

  5. Mountain forests of the Alps – other ecosystem services

  6. How to quantify the protective capacity of forests against • snow avalanches? Avalanche starting zones Surface roughness Forest Conference Center Davos Avalanche Modeling with AVAL 2D / RAMMS Quelle: Gruber, Christen and Bartelt, SLF / WSL IDRC 2008 Davos, August 2008

  7. How to quantify the protective capacity of forests against • snow avalanches? RAMMS: Rapid Mass Movements A modeling system for natural hazard research and practice Source: Gruber, Christen and Bartelt, SLF / WSL impact pressure (kPa) Animated flow height (m) max velocity (m/s) IDRC 2008 Davos, August 2008

  8. How to quantify the protective capacity of forests against • snow avalanches? Avalanche modeling for different forest scenarios Evaluation of the protective capacity of different forests. Situation with forest Situation without forest red zone: impact pressure > 30 kPa; blue zone: impact pressure < 30 kPa IDRC 2008 Davos, August 2008

  9. Risk = damage potential * recurrence probability Object map x Hazard map Object map xHazard map Andermatt (Switzerland) Source: M. Teich (SLF / WSL) IDRC 2008 Davos, August 2008

  10. Valuation of ecosystem goods and services Combination of risk-assessment with the valuation of other ecosystem services. Integration of uncertainties (Bayes Networks) Source: Gret-Regamey 2007 IDRC 2008 Davos, August 2008

  11. Conclusions Mountain forests are (by surface area) the most important avalanche protection. Their value is spatially and temporally variable and can be calculated for each stand in a risk analyis with the help of avalanche modeling. It would be possible to support measures for risk reduction in mountain forests more efficiently by linking them closer to their ecosystem services (and changes in space and time). More research is needed for improved decision support in mountain forests, including the improvement of existing models, the combination of different ecosystem services and uncertainty analysis in risk-based methods. IDRC 2008 Davos, August 2008

  12. Thank you for your attention! Peter Bebi and Perry Bartelt WSL / SLF Davos email: bebi@slf.ch, bartelt@slf.ch IDRC 2008 Davos, August 2008

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