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A three-stage model pipeline predicting regional avalanche danger in Switzerland (RAvaFcast v1.0.0): a decision-support tool for operational avalanche forecasting

By harnessing AI models, this work enables processing large amounts of data, including weather conditions, snowpack characteristics, and historical avalanche data, to predict human-like avalanche forecasts in Switzerland. Our proposed model can significantly assist avalanche forecasters in their decision-making process, thereby facilitating more efficient and accurate predictions crucial for ensuring safety in Switzerland’s avalanche-prone regions.

Air quality modeling intercomparison and multiscale ensemble chain for Latin America

Latin America (LAC) has some of the most populated urban areas in the world, with high levels of air pollution. Air quality management in LAC has been traditionally focused on surveillance and building emission inventories. This study performed the first intercomparison and model evaluation in LAC, with interesting and insightful findings for the region. A multiscale modeling ensemble chain was assembled as a first step towards an air quality forecasting system.

The Earthquake Risk Model of Switzerland, ERM-CH23

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DOI 10.5194/nhess-24-3561-2024
17 October 2024

The Earthquake Risk Model of Switzerland (ERM-CH23), released in early 2023, is the culmination of a multidisciplinary effort aiming to achieve, for the first time, a comprehensive assessment of the potential consequences of earthquakes on the Swiss building stock and population. ERM-CH23 provides risk estimates for various impact metrics, ranging from economic loss as a result of damage to buildings and their contents to human losses, such as deaths, injuries, and displaced population.

Characterizing nonlinear, nonstationary, and heterogeneous hydrologic behavior using ensemble rainfall–runoff analysis (ERRA): proof of concept

Here, I present a new way to quantify how streamflow responds to rainfall across a range of timescales. This approach can estimate how different rainfall intensities affect streamflow. It can also quantify how runoff response to rainfall varies, depending on how wet the landscape already is before the rain falls. This may help us to understand processes and landscape properties that regulate streamflow and to assess the susceptibility of different landscapes to flooding

Review article: Drought as a continuum – memory effects in interlinked hydrological, ecological, and social systems

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DOI 10.5194/nhess-24-3173-2024
23 September 2024

Drought is a creeping phenomenon but is often still analysed and managed like an isolated event, without taking into account what happened before and after. Here, we review the literature and analyse five cases to discuss how droughts and their impacts develop over time. We find that the responses of hydrological, ecological, and social systems can be classified into four types and that the systems interact. We provide suggestions for further research and monitoring, modelling, and management.

Volcano tsunamis and their effects on moored vessel safety: the 2022 Tonga event

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DOI 10.5194/nhess-24-3095-2024
20 September 2024

The eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcano in January 2022 triggered a global phenomenon, including an atmospheric wave and a volcano-meteorological tsunami (VMT). The tsunami, reaching as far as Callao, Peru, 10 000 km away, caused significant coastal impacts. This study delves into understanding these effects, particularly on vessel mooring safety. The findings underscore the importance of enhancing early warning systems and preparing port authorities for managing such rare events.

The 2020 European Seismic Hazard Model: overview and results

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DOI 10.5194/nhess-24-3049-2024
20 September 2024

The 2020 European Seismic Hazard Model (ESHM20) is the latest seismic hazard assessment update for the Euro-Mediterranean region. This state-of-the-art model delivers a broad range of hazard results, including hazard curves, maps, and uniform hazard spectra. ESHM20 provides two hazard maps as informative references in the next update of the European Seismic Design Code (CEN EC8), and it also provides a key input to the first earthquake risk model for Europe.

Large-sample hydrology – a few camels or a whole caravan?

We show that the differences between the forcing data included in three CAMELS datasets (US, BR, GB) and the forcing data included for the same catchments in the Caravan dataset affect model calibration considerably. The model performance dropped when the data from the Caravan dataset were used instead of the original data. Most of the model performance drop could be attributed to the differences in precipitation data. However, differences were largest for the potential evapotranspiration data.

Young and new water fractions in soil and hillslope waters

We use a 3-year time series of tracer data of streamflow and soils to show how water moves through the subsurface to become streamflow. Less than 50% of soil water consists of rainfall from the last 3 weeks. Most annual streamflow is older than 3 months, and waters in deep subsurface layers are even older; thus deep layers are not the only source of streamflow. After wet periods more rainfall was found in the subsurface and the stream, suggesting that water moves quicker through wet landscapes.

Mesoscale permeability variations estimated from natural airflows in the decorated Cosquer Cave (southeastern France)

Conservation of decorated caves is highly dependent on airflows and is correlated with rock formation permeability. We present the first conceptual model of flows around the Paleolithic decorated Cosquer coastal cave (southeastern France), quantify air permeability, and show how its variation affects water levels inside the cave. This study highlights that airflows may change in karst unsaturated zones in response to changes in the water cycle and may thus be affected by climate change.

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