Full-scale experiments to examine the role of  deadwood in rockfall dynamics in forests

Ringenbach, Adrian; Stihl, Elia; Bühler, Yves; Bebi, Peter; Bartelt, Perry; Rigling, Andreas; Christen, Marc; Lu, Guang; Stoffel, Andreas; Kistler, Martin; Degonda, Sandro; Simmler, Kevin; Mader, Daniel; Caviezel, Andrin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2433-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 7

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 2433–2443, 2022

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2433-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 2433–2443, 2022

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2433-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 7

Research article

25 Jul 2022

Research article | 25 Jul 2022

Full-scale experiments to examine the role of deadwood in rockfall dynamics in forests

Adrian Ringenbach et al.

Data sets

Experimental rockfall trilogy of Surava A. Caviezel, A. Ringenbach, Y. Bühler, A. Stoffel, K. Simmler, M. Kistler, S. Degonda, D. Mader, M. Christen, E. Stihl, and P. Bartelt https://doi.org/10.16904/envidat.248

Model code and software

Experimental rockfall trilogy of Surava A. Caviezel, A. Ringenbach, Y. Bühler, A. Stoffel, K. Simmler, M. Kistler, S. Degonda, D. Mader, M. Christen, E. Stihl, and P. Bartelt https://doi.org/10.16904/envidat.248

Short summary

Forests have a recognized braking effect on rockfalls. The impact of lying deadwood, however, is mainly neglected. We conducted 1 : 1-scale rockfall experiments in three different states of a spruce forest to fill this knowledge gap: the original forest, the forest including lying deadwood and the cleared area. The deposition points clearly show that deadwood has a protective effect. We reproduced those experimental results numerically, considering three-dimensional cones to be deadwood.