Basic findings of the project RIMES - Avalanches

Within the research project RIMES (Climate Change and Natural Hazard Risk Management in Energy Systems) the primary focus was put on the development of a methodical risk management procedure for energy generation facilities in an alpine environment, that ex- plicitly considers uncertainty and climate change aspects. The project started in 2009 and ter- minated in August 2013. In this paper we will highlight few basic findings of the project, re- garding avalanche hazard. In order to assess the influence of natural hazards on hydropower generation facilities, the prob- lem is approached at object-level (e.g. pylons, water intakes, reservoirs). In a first step the rel- evance of the considered hazard processes is evaluated based on a pre-assessment for every object, employing a GIS-based analysis and a preliminary estimation of the hazard situation on- site. In order to introduce climate change aspects in future risk management decisions, climate scenarios based on regional climate studies and time series analysis of local weather stations have been developed for the study area. Subsequently, the sensitivity of avalanches to the as- sumed changes was assessed at catchment-level. The results indicate that the assumed changes in climatic variables will affect the considered avalanche hazard processes differently, but have a clear link to elevation.