Natural Hazards in an Alpine Valley

Switzerland is exposed to a variety of natural hazards, especially in its mountainous regions. The assessment of the risks related to these hazards demands for an interdisciplinary approach, as the processes involved typically fall into different research areas.
The Alpine Valley Project was initiated with the goal of concentrating the different research efforts within the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic engineering of ETH (D-BAUG). Based on the study of a representative alpine valley the contribution of the different processes to the total risk will be identified and the interrelation between the different processes will be studied. The project should result in a generic description of a risk assessment for natural hazards in an alpine environment.
The study of a typical alpine valley allows investigating the effect of natural hazards on the safety of people and on the social and economical assets. This facilitates the evaluation of an integral description of the risk and may thus serve as a strong tool for future decisions both in regard to possible mitigation actions for specific mountainous regions, but also for identifying future research needs related to natural hazard phenomena.

• Natural Hazards in an Alpine Valley (ETH Research Database 12672)