International Symposium on Mitigative Measures against Snow ...
International Symposium on Mitigative Measures against Snow ...
International Symposium on Mitigative Measures against Snow ...
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<str<strong>on</strong>g>Internati<strong>on</strong>al</str<strong>on</strong>g> <str<strong>on</strong>g>Symposium</str<strong>on</strong>g> <strong>on</strong> <strong>Mitigative</strong> <strong>Measures</strong> <strong>against</strong> <strong>Snow</strong> Avalanches<br />
Egilsstaðir, Iceland, March 11–14, 2008<br />
In fact a serious predicti<strong>on</strong>? is not possible. Alpine agriculture is no l<strong>on</strong>ger needed for<br />
supplying the populati<strong>on</strong> with food. Bavarian farmers al<strong>on</strong>e produce a milk volume which is<br />
three times greater than the Austrian demand (Keuschnigg, 2005). Alpine valleys are probably<br />
<strong>on</strong>e of the most intensively used tourism areas in Europe at present and also in the future and<br />
Agriculture has more and more the role of landscape c<strong>on</strong>servati<strong>on</strong>. Somebody has to pay for it.<br />
3.2 Climate change<br />
3,0<br />
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Temperatur Innsbruck Univ., Winter<br />
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Figure 5 Winter temperature (m<strong>on</strong>thly mean values Dec – Feb) in Innsbruck 1906 –<br />
2004 (Gabl, 2005)<br />
Global warming is evident and is also expressed in the winter temperature over the last<br />
century. An expected, an increase of heavy precipitati<strong>on</strong> events is described in the third IPCC<br />
report (2007) for Europe. An exact regi<strong>on</strong>al forecast is not possible due to the lack and the<br />
shortness of data rows (Gabl, 2005). Climate models are not able to predict changes <strong>on</strong> a<br />
regi<strong>on</strong>al scale. Martin and others (2001) tried to find out how avalanche hazard will change<br />
under changed climate c<strong>on</strong>diti<strong>on</strong>s in the French Alps. They found – although their study<br />
should be c<strong>on</strong>sidered preliminary because of the very simple scenarios – that avalanche<br />
hazard will decrease slightly in winter, but the decrease is more pr<strong>on</strong>ounced in February. The<br />
frequency of major avalanche events can hardly be assessed. Formayer and others (2004)<br />
describe that about 50% of total precipitati<strong>on</strong> is expected to occur in form of heavy<br />
precipitati<strong>on</strong> in 2100. At the moment this value is approx. 35%.<br />
3.3 Protective measures<br />
To implement new protecti<strong>on</strong> work and maintain the old <strong>on</strong>e in a sufficient way is not<br />
possible with the same m<strong>on</strong>etary and pers<strong>on</strong>al input. At the moment the amount of m<strong>on</strong>ey that<br />
is needed for maintenance for avalanche protecti<strong>on</strong> c<strong>on</strong>structi<strong>on</strong>s is approx. 5 –7% of the<br />
Sauermoser 113<br />
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