Avalanche Protection Forest: From Process Knowledge to Interactive Maps

Abstract

In order to prioritize protection forest management, it is essential to know where forests have an effect on avalanches and which criteria the forests have to meet to avoid avalanche releases and reduce avalanche runout distances. This contribution outlines how the current assessment of effective protection forest can be improved by combining process knowledge on forest-avalanche interactions with newly available remote sensing data, large-scale numerical modeling and cartographic visualization techniques. Within the scope of a practical application in the Canton of Grisons (Central Swiss Alps), we showcase how scenario-specific avalanche protection forest maps have been developed and implemented into natural hazard indication maps in collaboration with avalanche modelers and practitioners. We outline further developments of such combined information towards interactive, web-based decision support tools based on resulting maps of effective avalanche protection forests.