Public entities, providing operational warning services and research facilities in the environment of natural hazards have been working in highalpine, exposed areas for decades and have subsequently developed a high level of informal risk management competence due to theirtechnical expertise and experience. Compared to their level of exposure, they have experienced only very few severe or fatal accidents duringfield work. Nevertheless, various natural hazards as well as hazards resulting from exposure to extreme weather conditions and complexterrain are inevitable and therefore almost always present during fieldwork in alpine terrain, with varying conditions throughout the seasons.Risk management is therefore required to enable the necessary activities on the one hand and on the other hand to protect the personnelinvolved from significant immediate hazards. Due to increasing safety demands and awareness and to provide an optimal working environmentfor the vastly varying personnel, ranging from technical employees to researchers, students or other attendants, a formalized, custom-tailoredsafety concept is of great importance. The framework we present here, has the goal to develop a risk management strategy that is accepted byall stakeholders and that effectively identifies and mitigates risks, such that operational objectives can be achieved, and possible damage willbe minimized. The presented safety concept is based on ISO 31000:2018 - a standard that deals with risk management, establishing guidelinesthat describe in a general setting how to deal with risks in an organization. The presented safety concept is divided into comprehensivefundamentals, an adapted framework and a universally applicable process. While the fundamentals and framework serve to establish a riskculture, the process defines the actual procedures for practice, for which the so-called RI.S.S.K. approach was developed.
