Jakob Rhyner
Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, Davos, Switzerland
Date
17 October 2007
Title
Physics for Safety in the Mountains
Abstract
The principal threat to safety in the mountains are gravitationally induced mass movements: snow avalanches, debris flow, land slides, or rock avalanches. Physics can contribute to many safety measures by understanding the process-initiation and -dynamics. The most advanced scientific foundations have been achieved in snow avalanches. The main challenges the researcher is confronted with are i) a chemically simple but structurally extremely variable and dynamical solid, ii) the interaction of many length scales: millimeters (fracture nucleation), meters (snowpack thickness), 100 meters (topography), to 10 km (regions), and iii) the necessity to create simplified tools for the safety responsibles, who have to make decisions under time pressure, with data that are often uncertain and incomplete. The experience gained with snow avalanches is now being transferred to hydrological hazards that have come more and more into play in the recent past.