The impact of terrain model source and  resolution on snow avalanche modeling

Miller, Aubrey; Sirguey, Pascal; Morris, Simon; Bartelt, Perry; Cullen, Nicolas; Redpath, Todd; Thompson, Kevin; Bühler, Yves

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2673-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 8

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 2673–2701, 2022

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2673-2022

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

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 2673–2701, 2022

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2673-2022

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

Articles | Volume 22, issue 8

Research article

22 Aug 2022

Research article | 22 Aug 2022

The impact of terrain model source and resolution on snow avalanche modeling

Aubrey Miller et al.

Data sets

Interactive webmap of study results Mountain Research Centre https://arcg.is/0fqHS4

ArcticDEM C. Porter, P. Morin, I. Howat, M.-J. Noh, B. Bates, K. Peterman, S. Keesey, M. Schlenk, J. Gardiner, K. Tomko, M. Willis, C. Kelleher, M. Cloutier, E. Husby, S. Foga, H. Nakamura, M. Platson, M. Wethington, C. Williamson, G. Bauer, J. Enos, G. Arnold, W. Kramer, P. Becker, A. Doshi, C. D'Souza, P. Cummens, F. Laurier, and M. Bojesen https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/OHHUKH

Model code and software

NeoGeographyToolkit/StereoPipeline 2.7.0 (2.7.0) R. Beyer, O. Alexandrov, S. McMichael, M. Broxton, M. Lundy, K. Husmann, L. Edwards, A. Nefian, B. Smith, D. Shean, T. Smith, mstyer, A. Annex, Z. Moratto, harguess, A. Aravkin, J. Meyer, S. Bhushan, and jlaura https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3963341

Short summary

Natural hazard modelers simulate mass movements to better anticipate the risk to people and infrastructure. These simulations require accurate digital elevation models. We test the sensitivity of a well-established snow avalanche model (RAMMS) to the source and spatial resolution of the elevation model. We find key differences in the digital representation of terrain greatly affect the simulated avalanche results, with implications for hazard planning.