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Titel |
Slope processes and related risk appearance within the Icelandic Westfjords during the twentieth century |
VerfasserIn |
A. Decaulne |
Medientyp |
Artikel
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Sprache |
Englisch
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ISSN |
1561-8633
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Digitales Dokument |
URL |
Erschienen |
In: Natural Hazards and Earth System Science ; 5, no. 3 ; Nr. 5, no. 3 (2005-03-29), S.309-318 |
Datensatznummer |
250002481
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Publikation (Nr.) |
copernicus.org/nhess-5-309-2005.pdf |
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Zusammenfassung |
In North-western Iceland, records of slope processes were increasing during
the twentieth century. Few dramatic events during the last decades
highlighted the danger due to slope dynamics, leaving local populations in a
risk situation that was merely unknown before 1970. The recent
snow-avalanche, debris-flow and rock-fall activity underlined that the most
frequent processes are not these with the largest human impact. In fact, the
most catastrophic events were the extreme ones, following directly from a
low frequency and a high magnitude. The purpose of this paper is to draw a
parallel history of natural hazard and residence spatial extension, for an
accurate understanding of the present-day risk situation, as the population
growth markedly increased during the same time. Different quantitative and
qualitative methods are applied. Geomorphological investigations locate the
main threaten areas, in the path of slope processes release evidences, i.e.
suitable slope morphology and/or inherited/actual forms. By a collection of
dating data, as historic records and lichenometrical analysis, the frequency
of given magnitude events is known. Climatic analysis clarifies the
triggering meteorological conditions of slope processes and offers an
overview of climate fluctuation during the investigated period; wind speed
and direction is critical to hazardous snow-avalanche departure and snowmelt
is crucial for debris-flow release. The findings clearly indicate that a
combination of spatial expansion of inhabited areas and a lack of slope
processes knowledge at the expansion time led to a recent and progressive
risk appearance due to snow avalanches (including slush flows), debris flows
and rock fall in most towns and villages of North-western Iceland. |
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