Research

Climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme heavy-rainfall events in the Alps. Together with changing land use and the growing concentration of settlements in hazard-prone areas, this is significantly increasing the demands placed on natural hazard management. Specifically, global warming and its consequences are leading to greater mobilization of unconsolidated material in Alpine catchments, exacerbated by intense precipitation, thawing permafrost, and glacier retreat. As a result, the sediment loads transported during torrential events are in some cases rising dramatically, with estimates indicating a doubling of the transported masses and changes in sediment regimes. In addition, the use and disposal of the sediments generated pose considerable organizational and financial challenges, owing to complex legal frameworks (AWG, WRG, MinROG, NatSchG), substantial land requirements, and the need to simplify administrative procedures. There is therefore a need for a consistent compilation of current knowledge on solid-material and sediment budgets in Alpine catchments. The existing state of knowledge must be systematically reviewed and synthesized in order to provide a robust basis for future protection and management decisions. The white paper is intended to provide a well-founded overview and to derive a set of questions identifying priorities and programs for future action.

The research project aims to gain new insights into the effectiveness and planning of decentralised retention measures in forests. This includes the systematic survey of existing decentralised technical retention measures in forested catchment areas, the development of a methodology for the systematic evaluation and dimensioning of decentralised retention measures and model approaches for the dimensioning and simulation of the measures, model- and monitoring-based effectiveness assessment, and the creation of a practice-oriented guide and a comprehensive catalogue of measures. The methods used include systematic data collection and evaluation, the further development and application of models such as Zemokost and Raven, the performance of sensitivity analyses, and the integration of monitoring and modelling approaches.

The core cartographic and geographical areas of risk communication comprise those methods and principles that are used to convey spatial hazards and the resulting risks in a comprehensible, precise and action-oriented manner. From a cartographic perspective, the emphasis is on the comprehensible visualisation of hazard areas, the reduction of complex models to clear representations, the utilisation of interactive and digital maps, and the design oriented towards specific target groups. In this context, risk communication is defined as the technology- and data-based communication of spatial risk and hazard information, with the objective of presenting complex geographical contexts in a comprehensible manner, making uncertainties transparent, and enabling affected actors to take informed, prevention- and decision-oriented actions. The RISKCOMM project will provide the basis for this.