Michaela Teich

Federal Research and Training Centre for Forests, Natural Hazards and Landscape · Department of Natural Hazards

Forests in mountain areas provide an indispensable ecosystem service by protecting people and infrastructure against natural hazards. As forests are increasingly affected by global change, including climate change, more frequent and severe natural disturbances, and shifts in land use, open questions remain regarding the long-term and sustainable pr...

Protective forests are a key component to reduce natural hazard risks in mountain areas by preventing or decreasing the frequency, magnitude and/or intensity of snow avalanches, rockfall, landslides, floods, and debris flows. This book summarizes the state-of-the-art knowledge and introduces methods and decision support tools to facilitate the use...

Protective forests are an effective Forest-based Solution (FbS) for Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR) and are part of an integrated risk management (IRM) of natural hazards. However, their utilization requires addressing conflicting interests as well as considering relevant spatial and temporal scales. Decision Support Systems (DSS)...

Mountain forests are an efficient Forest-based Solution (FbS) for Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR) by lowering the frequency, magnitude, and/or intensity of natural hazards. Technical protection measures are often poor solutions as stand-alone measures to reduce disaster risk limited by material wear and fatigue or financial resour...

Models and simulation tools for gravitational mass flows (GMFs) such as snow avalanches, rockfall, landslides, and debris flows are important for research, education, and practice. In addition to basic simulations and classic applications (e.g., hazard zone mapping), the importance and adaptability of GMF simulation tools for new and advanced appli...

Snow duration in post‐fire forests is influenced by neighborhoods of trees, snags, and deadwood. We used annually resolved, spatially explicit tree and tree mortality data collected in an old‐growth, mixed‐conifer forest in the Sierra Nevada, California that burned at low to moderate severity to calculate ten tree neighborhood metrics within circle...

Simulation tools and their integrated models are widely used to estimate potential starting, transit and runout zones of gravitational natural hazards such as rockfall, snow avalanches and landslides (i.e., gravitational mass flows [GMFs]). Forests growing in areas susceptible to GMFs can influence their release and propagation probabilities (i.e.,...

Models and simulation tools for gravitational mass flows (GMF) such as snow avalanches, rockfall, landslides and debris flows are important for research, education and practice. In addition to basic simulations and classic applications (e.g., hazard zone mapping), the importance and adaptability of GMF simulation tools for new and advanced applicat...

Mapping of protective functions and effects of forests is subject to geodata on 1) natural hazard susceptibilities (hazard potential), 2) assets to be protected (damage potential), and 3) forest conditions, that is, forest use (legal extent) and cover (structure). Objectives in terms of legal definitions of assets and levels of risk acceptance (pro...

Mapping of protective functions and effects of forests is subject to geodata on 1) natural hazard susceptibilities (hazard potential), 2) assets to be protected (damage potential), and 3) forest conditions, that is, forest use (legal extent) and cover (structure). Objectives in terms of legal definitions of assets and levels of risk acceptance (pro...

Risks have always shaped the way society has grown and evolved. Consequently, the risk concept has been studied and applied by different disciplines such as natural sciences as well as by economic, engineering, health, and insurance sectors. However, its definition and application are heterogenous and often vary among research communities. This cha...

This chapter highlights the influence of mountain forests on runoff patterns in alpine catchments. We discuss the forest impact at different spatial scales and bridge to the requirements for an integrated natural hazard risk management, which considers forest as an efficient protection measure against floods and other water-related natural hazards....

Snow interception by the forest canopy controls the spatial heterogeneity of subcanopy snow accumulation leading to significant differences between forested and nonforested areas at a variety of scales. Snow intercepted by the forest canopy can also drastically change the surface albedo. As such, accurately modeling snow interception is of importan...

Verzögerte Wiederbewaldung im Schutzwald bewirkt in vielen Fällen eine Verschlechterung des Abflussverhaltens und der Standfestigkeit der Hänge. Die vorliegende Anleitung gibt Hinweise, Beispiele für Maßnahmen und definiert Kriterien für die Bestandesoptimierung aus hydrologischer Sicht und die Optimierung der Standfestigkeit im Hinblick auf flachg...

Snow interception by forest canopy drives the spatial heterogeneity of subcanopy snow accumulation leading to significant differences between forested and non-forested areas at a variety of scales. Snow intercepted by forest canopy can also drastically change the surface albedo. As such, accuratelly modelling snow interception is of importance for...

Healthy, dense forests growing in avalanche terrain reduce the likelihood of slab avalanche release by inhibiting the formation of continuous snow layers and weaknesses in the snowpack. Driven by climate change, trends towards more frequent and severe bark beetle disturbances have already resulted in the death of millions of hectares of forest in N...

A snow profile, i.e. the variation of snow physical properties as a function of depth, captures the snow cover stratigraphy which is crucial for many applications such as the assessment of the avalanche danger. With the increasing use of distributed snowpack numerical models or electronic highly-resolved snow penetrometers, which generates a huge a...

This data set contains raw penetration force profiles measured at snow pits and along linear transects at Grand Mesa, Colorado using the SnowMicroPen (SMP), a digital snow penetrometer.

This resource contains lidar data, collected at the TW Daniels Experimental Forest (TWDEF) on six separate flights in 2008 and 2009 measuring surface and canopy properties during snow-on and snow-off conditions. It was collected for the purposes of obtaining a digital elevation model (DEM) to characterize the area for snowmelt modeling, and by diff...

Unprecedented bark beetle outbreaks across western North America have resulted in the death of millions of trees, which profoundly affects snowpack in high elevation forests. Healthy, dense forests growing in avalanche terrain reduce the likelihood of avalanche release by inhibiting the formation of continuous weak layers, which are key for slab av...

Mass attack by tree-killing bark beetles (Curculionidae: Scolytinae) brings about large chemical changes in host trees that can have important ecological consequences. For example, mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) attack increases emission of terpenes by lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud.), affecting foliage flamma...

Two-dimensional avalanche simulation software operating in three-dimensional terrain is widely used for hazard zoning and engineering to predict runout distances and impact pressures of snow avalanche events. Mountain forests are an effective biological protection measure against avalanches; however, the protective capacity of forests to decelerate...

A long-standing problem in avalanche science is to understand how forests stop avalanches. In this paper we quantify the effect of forests on small and medium avalanches, crucial for road and ski- run safety. We performed field studies on seven avalanches where trees affected the runout. We gathered information concerning the release zone location...

Two-dimensional avalanche simulation software operating in three-dimensional terrain is widely used for hazard zoning and engineering to predict runout distances and impact pressures of snow avalanche events. Mountain forests are an effective biological protection measure; however, the protective capacity of forests to decelerate or even to stop av...

Mountain forests play a crucial role in avalanche mitigation by hindering avalanche for-mation. Nevertheless, due to the complex interactions between ecological conditions, terrain, snow-pack and meteorological parameters the protective effect of forests may be reduced. Therefore, so-called 'forest avalanches' do occur and may be a threat to roads,...

Mountain forests play a crucial role in avalanche control by modifying the snow's mechanical properties. However, snow avalanches do occur in forests due to unfavorable combinations of site, snow and weather conditions and these so-called 'forest avalanches' can pose hazard to human settlements and infrastructure. While the meteorological contribut...

Changes in forest cover and ecosystem services in Davos under climate change: The effects of climate change on forests of Davos were examined with field experiments near treeline, analyses of avalanche-forest interactions and with spatially explicit models for the valuation of ecosystem services. Experimental trees at the Stillberg research site sh...

Mountain forests are recognized as an effective biological protection measure against snow avalanches. To investigate how forests decelerate snow avalanches, we analyzed two data sets from the European Alps. The first data set contained 43 small to medium avalanches which released in forests and either stopped in forested terrain within 50 to 400 m...

Frequency and magnitude of avalanches starting in forested terrain (forest avalanches) are likely to be affected by climate change. We addressed two important developments which will influence the forest avalanche regime: 1) trends in the occurrence of favorable snow and weather situations which increase the probability of forest avalanche releases...

Avalanche dynamics models are used for hazard zoning and engineering to predict runout distances and impact pressures of snow avalanche events. The effect of mountain forests as an effective biological protection measure against avalanches has rarely been addressed in this context. Avalanche runout distances of small to medium avalanches are strong...

A longstanding problem in avalanche science is to understand how forests stop small and medium sized avalanches. Avalanche dynamics models have traditionally been employed to calculate extreme avalanche runout and have assigned a minor role to forests in dissipating flow energy. In this paper we quantify the important effect of forests in stopping...

Forests provide a variety of ecosystem goods and services to society, which often have the typical characteristics of a public good: non-excludability and non-rivalry. One of these services is avalanche protection of forests. A monetary valuation of this service would be helpful to provide efficient and effective protection to the local pop-ulation...

Technical snowmaking has become an important measure in winter tourism destinations to deal with decreasing snow reliability, seasonal weather variability, and growing customer demand. This study analyzes tourists' attitudes toward technical snowmaking, their preferences for snow reliability, and other factors that influence destination choice. We...

Forest avalanche protection – methods and results of a willingness-to-pay analysis Forests provide a variety of ecosystem goods and services to society. One of these services, avalanche protection, has the typical characteristics of a public good: non-excludability and non-rivalry. A monetary valuation of this service would be helpful to provide ef...

The winter tourism industry is facing considerable challenges with climate change; it is increasingly responding with investments in snowmaking facilities. We present a study on 3 tourism destinations in the Swiss Alps that addressed resource consumption of snowmaking, snow reliability, and future snowmaking potential in a warmer climate. The energ...

The protection of people, buildings and infrastructure against natural hazards is one of the key functions of mountain forests. Since the protective function strongly depends on small-scale local conditions such as terrain and stand characteristics, spatially explicit evaluation methods are necessary to provide information required for an effective...

The moss-bag-technique, originally developed in 1970 by GOODMAN & ROBERTS, was applied during a 3-month heavy metal survey at the six Level II plots in Saxony, Germany. The Level II plots, integrated in an European program of forest condition monitoring, compromise a site in the forest stand and a corresponding site in the open field vicinity of th...