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Updated: May 29, 2026
12:44
Watershed Planning within a Quantitative Scenario Analysis Framework
Published on: July 24, 2016
Developing consistent scenarios to assess flood hazards in mountain streams.
B Mazzorana1, F Comiti, C Scherer
1Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Autonomous Province of Bolzano, Cesare Battisti Str. 23, Bolzano 39100, Italy. bruno.mazzorana@provincia.bz.it
Journal of Environmental Management
|September 13, 2011
Summary
Extreme events in mountain streams involve complex tipping processes. This study introduces a new expert-based method to map these natural hazard scenarios and their probabilities for better flood risk management.
Area of Science:
- Hydrology
- Natural Hazards
- Risk Management
Background:
- Steep mountain streams are prone to extreme events with multiple tipping process patterns.
- Uncertainties in hydrological cause-effect chains pose challenges for flood risk management.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present a novel expert-based methodology for unfolding natural hazard process scenarios in mountain streams.
- To retrace the probabilistic structure of these scenarios for improved hazard assessment.
Main Methods:
- System representation for natural hazard process routing.
- Formative Scenario Analysis to derive consistent natural hazard process patterns.
- Expert elicitation to determine the spatial probabilistic structure of scenario trajectories.
Main Results:
- The methodology effectively unfolds complex natural hazard process patterns in mountain streams.
- Probabilistic structures of individual scenario trajectories are identified through expert input.
- Embedded examples demonstrate the practical applicability of the developed method.
Conclusions:
- The presented approach offers significant advantages for hazard assessment over traditional methods.
- This methodological advancement enhances the risk governance process for mountain stream hazards.
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