The Application of the Risk Concept to Debris Flow Hazards

Debris flows present a serious hazard in alpine regions, where natural environment meets the space of human interest such as settlements and infrastructure. In the past various measures have been developed to protect human life and property. However, a complete protection from damage is not possible, also due to limited financial resources of public fund providers. Therefore, the concept of risk management was adopted from technical sciences as an alternative and sustainable protection strategy, and was increasingly implemented in Alpine countries within the last decades. This paper provides an introduction to the state of the art in risk analysis for debris flow hazards, including an overview of different but complementary methods for debris flow risk analysis at different scales.