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Climate change and risks

Understanding avalanche risk

Harsh mountain environments are host to particularly complex interactions between the three dimensions of disaster risk – hazard, vulnerability and exposure. As global temperatures rise, increasingly sophisticated research tools help our researchers to keep pace with the changing patterns of avalanche risk.

Published on 06 February 2023

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Understanding avalanche risk

The magazine that informs, decodes and gives food for thought

 

This dossier is dedicated to Xavier Ravanat, a member of the ETNA Unit, killed in a mountain accident in February 2021. 

[Infographics] The avalanche risk ecosystem

Avalanche risk ecosystem

Click on the image to download the infographics.

To read in this dossier

A whole-system approach to fast-changing risk

Half a century of sustained research has produced an advanced framework and tools for the study of avalanche risk, firmly underpinned by the principles of multi-disciplinarity and inclusiveness. These will prove vital as the changing climate presents us with new challenges.

Multi-faceted research

From the scale of a micrometre to that of a mountain range, from observation to modelling, INRAE’s researchers draw on the full range of current techniques and technologies, in both snow studies and other disciplines, to understand and predict this complex phenomenon.

Risk prevention is all about partnership

Global warming is bringing rapid changes to avalanche risk. Research and professional expertise must therefore be combined, as scientists and the many practitioners and stakeholders involved in risk prevention join forces to build the collective knowledge needed to anticipate and prepare for both current and emerging risks.

Science-led risk management

An interview with Véronique Lehideux, who runs the government department responsible for the production and management of national policy on natural risk prevention and the coordination of actions to address major risks. We asked her to talk to us about avalanche risk, the work of her department, and the latter’s partnerships with the world of research.

Glossary

  • Hazard: A dangerous phenomenon that may occur in a given location, characterised by its situation in time and space, intensity, size, frequency and the level of probability associated with its occurrence.
  • Vulnerability: The conditions, determined by physical, social, economic and environmental factors or processes, that render individuals, communities, material assets or systems, more susceptible to hazards. 
  • Exposure: The location of individuals, infrastructure, dwellings, production capacity and other tangible assets in risk zones.
  • Mitigation measures: Measures that reduce or restrict the negative consequences of a dangerous event.
  • Forcing: The introduction to a model of specific meteorological conditions or events (temperature, precipitation, wind, etc.) that determine the condition and extent of the snowpack and hence local avalanche activity. 

(Glossary based on ANR Cahier 10: Risques et catastrophes naturelles, INRAE)

  • Sebastiàn Escalon & ETNA Research Unit

    Authors / Translated by Teresa Bridgeman

  • Thierry Caquet, Mohamed Naaïm & Patrick Flammarion

    Scientific direction

  • Lou Rihn

    Illustrator

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