A simple method to assess flood hazard at riverbed cross-sections applied to a site in the Italian Central Alps

Abstract

In mountain environments, urbanized areas are often, if not always, located along the main river, in the valley bottom: this can lead to hazardous situations when the river itself and its features are not accounted for in a proper manner. To avoid such situations, a proper hazard and/or risk evaluation is required, even more in the wider context of a changing climate. For these reasons, the present study proposes a simple and easy to reproduce method for a preliminary evaluation of the hydraulic hazard of rivers in an alpine environment. This approach is based on easy to access and public data. The method does not provide a complete description of the hydraulic conditions of a river but is simple and highly replicable: it is intended as a tool to quickly assess the hydraulic hazard of strategic locations. A suitable site in the Central Italian Alps was analyzed to test the goodness of this method.