Modelling forest effects on snow avalanche runout with the Flow-Py simulation tool

Vienna

2022

2 S.

Sonderdruck

12977S

40003197

Forests cover large parts of mountain areas. It is therefore necessary to include their effects in simulations at the regional scale to understand the key role forests have for risk mitigation. Process-based physical models can be used for such simulations, but they often require larger computational resources than statistical models. Flow-Py is a customizable, open-source simulation tool to predict the runout and intensity of gravitational mass flows (GMF). Flow-Py is based on data-driven empirical modeling ideas with automated path identification to solve the routing and stopping of GMFs in three-dimensional terrain, requiring fewer parameters than physical GMF runout models. Here we present the custom-built forest plug-in to the Flow-Py simulation tool which accounts for forest effects in the transit and runout zones of snow avalanches.