Regional-scale identification of forest stands with protective functionality

München

2017

Sonderdruck

202737

In avalanche practice physical-based dynamical models are commonly utilized to estimate expected avalanche
characteristics, such as runout lengths, velocities or impact pressures. These are of major interest for hazard zoning
or planning and construction of mitigation measures and infrastructure in avalanche prone terrain. Physical-based
models are commonly applied on a local scale for single avalanche tracks, where required model inputs are estimated based on local expertise and calculation times are not a limiting criterion. For regional scale studies on geophysical mass flows the area-wide availability of input parameters and required computational times present constraints on model applicability. Consequently, for studies encompassing larger areas, spatially distributed models with limited input parameter requirements have been developed and successfully applied in recent years. Published approaches often apply a combination of a one-dimensional physical or empirical runout model with different algorithms for flow propagation and spreading. Here, we describe a model for snow avalanche runout estimation based on an empirical runout criterion coupled