ABSTRACT. A long-standing problem in avalanche science is to understand how forests stop avalanches. In this paper we quantify the effect of forests on small and medium avalanches, crucial for road and skirun safety. We performed field studies on seven avalanches where trees affected the runout. We gathered information concerning the release zone location and dimension, deposition patterns and heights, runout distance and forest structure. In these studies the trees were not destroyed, but acted as rigid obstacles. Wedge-like depositions formed behind (1) individual tree stems, (2) dense tree groups and (3) young trees with low-lying branches. Using the observations as a guide, we developed a oneparameter function to extract momentum corresponding to the stopped mass from the avalanche. The function was implemented in a depth-averaged avalanche dynamics model and used to predict the observed runout distances and mean deposition heights for the seven case studies. The approach differs from existing forest interaction models, which modify avalanche friction to account for tree breakage and debris entrainment. Our results underscore the importance of forests in mitigating the danger from small-to-medium avalanches.

Flowing snow is a cohesive granular material. Snow temperature and moisture content control the strength of the cohesive bonding between granules and therefore the outcome of granular interactions. Strong, cohesive interactions reduce the free mechanical energy in the avalanche core and therefore play a significant role in defining the avalanche flow regime. We introduce cohesion into avalanche dynamics model calculations by (1) treating cohesion as an additional internal binding energy that must be overcome to expand the avalanche flow volume, (2) modifying the Coulomb stress function to account for the increase in shear because of cohesive interactions and (3) increasing the activation energy to control the onset of avalanche fluidization. The modified shear stress function is based on force measurements in chute experiments with flowing snow. Example calculations are performed on ideal and real terrain to demonstrate how snow cohesion modifies avalanche flow and runout behaviour.

Abstract. Snow avalanches break, uproot and overturn trees causing damage to forests. The extent of forest damage provides useful information on avalanche frequency and intensity. However, impact forces depend on avalanche flow regime. In this paper, we define avalanche loading cases representing four different avalanche flow regimes: powder, intermittent, dry and wet. Using a numerical model that simulates both powder and wet snow avalanches, we study documented events with forest damage. First we show that in the powder regime, although the applied impact pressures can be small, large bending moments in the tree stem can be produced due to the torque action of the blast. The impact area of the blast extends over the entire tree crown. We find that, powder clouds with velocities over 20 m s −1 can break tree stems. Second we demonstrate that intermittent granular loadings are equivalent to low-density uniform dry snow loadings under the assumption of homogeneous particle distributions. The intermittent regime seldom controls tree breakage. Third we calculate quasi-static pressures of wet snow avalanches and show that they can be much higher than pressures calculated using dynamic pressure formulas. Wet snow pressure depends both on avalanche volume and terrain features upstream of the tree.

[1] When a full-depth tensile crack opens in the mountain snowcover, internal forces are transferred from the fracture crown to the stauchwall. The stauchwall is located at the lower limit of a gliding zone and must carry the weight of the snowcover. The stauchwall can fail, leading to full-depth snow avalanches, or, it can withstand the stress redistribution. The snowcover often finds a new static equilibrium, despite the initial crack. We present a model describing how the snowcover reacts to the sudden transfer of the forces from the crown to the stauchwall. Our goal is to find the conditions for failure and the start of full-depth avalanches. The model balances the inertial forces of the gliding snowcover with the viscoelastic response of the stauchwall. We compute stresses, strain-rates and deformations during the stress redistribution and show that a new equilibrium state is not found directly, but depends on the viscoelastic properties of the snow, which are density and temperature dependent. During the stress redistribution the stauchwall encounters stresses and strain-rates that can be much higher than at the final equilibrium state. Because of the excess strain-rates, the stauchwall can fail in brittle compression before reaching the new equilibrium. Snow viscosity and the length of the gliding snow region are the two critical parameters governing the transition from stable snowpack gliding to avalanche flow. The model reveals why the formation of gliding snow avalanches is height invariant and how technical measures to prevent snowpack glide can be optimized to improve avalanche mitigation. Citation: Bartelt, P., T. Feistl, Y. Bühler, and O. Buser (2012), Overcoming the stauchwall: Viscoelastic stress redistribution and the start of full-depth gliding snow avalanches,

Abstract. Two-dimensional avalanche simulation software operating in three-dimensional terrain is widely used for hazard zoning and engineering to predict runout distances and impact pressures of snow avalanche events. Mountain forests are an effective biological protection measure against avalanches; however, the protective capacity of forests to decelerate or even to stop avalanches that start within forested areas or directly above the treeline is seldom considered in this context. In particular, runout distances of smallto medium-scale avalanches are strongly influenced by the structural conditions of forests in the avalanche path. We present an evaluation and operationalization of a novel detrainment function implemented in the avalanche simulation software RAMMS for avalanche simulation in forested terrain. The new approach accounts for the effect of forests in the avalanche path by detraining mass, which leads to a deceleration and runout shortening of avalanches. The relationship is parameterized by the detrainment coefficient K [kg m −1 s −2 ] accounting for differing forest characteristics. We varied K when simulating 40 well-documented smallto medium-scale avalanches, which were released in and ran through forests of the Swiss Alps. Analyzing and comparing observed and simulated runout distances statistically revealed values for K suitable to simulate the combined influence of four forest characteristics on avalanche runout: forest type, crown closure, vertical structure and surface cover, for example, values for K were higher for dense spruce and mixed spruce-beech forests compared to open larch forests at the upper treeline. Considering forest structural conditions within avalanche simulations will improve current applications for avalanche simulation tools in mountain forest and natural hazard management.