Become a member
The core of ecorisQ is made of its members. By joining ecorisQ you will expand your professional network and profit from transparent tools in the field of natural hazard risks. Being an ecorisQ member demonstrates that you are willing to increase the transparancy and reproducibility of natural hazard analyses and that you promote sustainable protection against natural hazards.
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Recurrent precipitation in June and July 2024 led to flooding in many regions of Switzerland. Heavy rainfall and storms in the second half of June caused rivers and streams to rise rapidly, particularly in Valais and Ticino. Floods and debris flows caused extensive damage to settlements and infrastructure. To date, 10 people have lost their lives and several others are still missing. Dealing with and coming to terms with these events will take a long time. More information here.
In the image shown above, the village of Fontana (Maggia valley) - ©swisstopo 2024
Before & After event comparison
Village of Fontana (Maggia valley)
Village of Sorte (Grisons)
Val d'Anniviers (Valais)
For natural hazard and risk analyses, the following ecorisQ tools can be used:
BankforNET - Bank erosion assessment tool
This tool aims to support experts in the quantification of bank erosion hazards and the effects of biological measures.
SlideforMAP - Shallow landslide simulation at regional scale
SlideforMAP is a probabilistic model to assess shallow landslide probability on a regional scale with an explicit focus on vegetation scenarios.
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On Sunday 14 April 2024, a Bergsturz with more than 1 million m3 occurred on the north face of Piz Scerscen (Switzerland). Although this event occurred spontaneously after several days with high temperatures, nobody got hurt. Since a lot of water has been observed in the failure zone, melting of snow and ice very probably played an important role. The runout distance was 5.4 km, which coressponds to a energy line angle of 15° (following the travel path) and 16° (following a straight line) - typical values for such events. An impressive movie showing the release, transit and deposit area can be found here (commented in the beautiful Rumantsch - the fourth Swiss national language).
With our new rockfall runout simulation tool named RockavELA, we try to predict the propagation of such events.
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We launched bèta versions of two news tools, one for shallow landslide hazard assemsment called SlideforMAP and the second for streambank erosion called BankforMAP. SlideforMAP is a probabilistic model to assess shallow landslide probability on a regional scale with an explicit focus on vegetation scenarios. BankforMAP is a two-dimensional model that computes the probability of streambank erosion at the catchment scale due to a rainfall event and can also calculate transport and deposition of large wood along streams.
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During the last years we were working on the improvement of the online tool “SlideforNET”, now available here. The tool supports specialists in the assessment of hazards due to shallow landslides on vegetated slope and in the quantitative evaluation of bioengineering measures following normed approaches such as the use of reliability index or partial security factors (including the one for root reinforcement!!). Moreover, the new table “Stand diagram” supports foresters in the decision of interventions in protection forests. The major technical improvements consist in the implementation of new root reinforcement data, improved stability calculations described in van Zadelhoff et al. (2022), based on the results of Cohen and Schwarz (2017) and Schwarz et al. (2015).
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In collaboration with Lignum, ecorisQ published a summary description of the use of timber in hazard mitigation structures against erosion and landslides, as well as in torrent control and avalanche protection. This easy-to-read and hands-on publication presents tried and tested constructions and their applications. Therefore, this publication not only aims at experts in forestry construction
engineering, but also at planners in natural hazard prevention and those interested in building with wood in general. The publication
pdf
can be publicly downloaded here
(6.66 MB)
.
