Baronnies Provençales Regional Nature Park Pilot Action Region: The Benefit of Large-Scale Rockfall Modelling for Developing Efficient Forest-Based Integrative Management of an Alpine Territory

Abstract

The choice of a natural risk prevention strategy must be considered at the scale of a territory in order to take into account all its components. Since 2015, France has developed integrated natural risk management (INRM) approaches in Alpine territories. The challenge of INRM lies in the definition and implementation of innovative projects for initiating synergies with respect to natural risks while seeking to increase resilience through the new and different involvement of the territorial actors. The Baronnies Provençales Regional Nature Park is one of the pilot territories for the operational implementation of this approach, with a particular focus on forest-based solutions. For this reason it has been chosen as the French Pilot Action Region (PAR) of the Interreg Alpine Space project GreenRisk4Alps. In this article we present an example of good practice related to the benefit of large-scale rockfall risk modeling, the analysis of potential cascading effects and the added value of a territorial perspective.

Protective Forests for Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR) in the Alpine Space

“…One objective of the Interreg Alpine Space project GreenRisk4ALPs [64] was to propose ways to improve current forestry policies in the Alpine Space. Hence, a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis was conducted by experts for (protective) forest legislations in Austria, France, Bavaria (Germany), Italy, and Slovenia [65]. A summary, based on this SWOT analysis, of the general existence of regulations, tools, and standardized methods to support the management of protective forests as an FbS for Eco-DRR is given in Table 1.…”

“…Summary of the general existence of regulations, tools, and standardized methods in selected Alpine Space countries, supporting the management of protective forests as FbS for Eco-DRR. Adapted from [65].…”

“…• Developing clear communication and dissemination strategies about the efficiency and limits of FbS, are only a few recommendations to enhance current (protective) forest policies and legislations to support improving the relevance of FbS in IRM (for further information and details see [65]).…”