Abstract
Abstract. The study area (600 km2), consisting of Orco and Soana valleys in the Western Italian Alps, experienced different types of natural hazards, typical of the whole Alpine environment. Some of the authors have been requested to draw a civil protection plan for such mountainous regions. This offered the special opportunity (1) to draw a lot of unpublished historical data, dating back several centuries mostly concerning natural hazard processes and related damages, (2) to develop original detailed geo-morphological studies in a region still poorly known, (3) to prepare detailed thematic maps illustrating landscape components related to natural conditions and hazards, (4) to thoroughly check present-day situations in the area compared to the effects of past events and (5) to find adequate natural hazard scenarios for all sites exposed to risk. The method of work has been essentially to compare archival findings with field evidence in order to assess natural hazard processes, their occurrence and magnitude, and to arrange all such elements in a database for GIS-supported thematic maps. Several types of natural hazards, such as landslides, rockfalls, debris flows, stream floods and snow avalanches cause huge damage to lives and properties (housings, roads, tourist sites). We aim to obtain newly acquired knowledge in this large, still poorly understood area as well as develop easy-to-interpret products such as natural risk maps.
Highlights
Several physical processes of the Alpine environment can be considered dangerous to human lives and their properties and they are commonly referred to as “natural hazards”
Joining together several sources found in the course of the study the authors have acquired historic knowledge on past hazardous events and related damages in the Orco and Soana valleys
Snowavalanche victims account for 59 %, victims of stream floods account for 21%; debris flows and rock falls account for 12 and 8 % of deadly events, respectively
Summary
Several physical processes of the Alpine environment can be considered dangerous to human lives and their properties (e.g. torrential floods, landslides, snow avalanches, wildfire, earthquakes) and they are commonly referred to as “natural hazards”. Those hazards have been investigated and mapped with a view to constructing a GIS database for the widest possible range of events expected in the valleys already mentioned. The Orco and Soana valleys are a part of the oldest natural park in Italy (Gran Paradiso National Park) which attracts several thousand tourists every year They possess a long history of instability and have incurred hundreds of casualties and extensive damage by avalanches, rockfalls, soil slips, debris flows and flooding. The aim of the present study is the following: (1) ameliorating knowledge, both on a historical basis and through detailed on-site investigations, of natural hazards affecting a mountainous district in the Orco and Soana Valleys (Western Italian Alps, Fig. 1); (2) to collect any kind of information about physiography, geo-morphology, land use and especially unstable elements in the landscape, in order to prepare informatics tools to ar-
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