the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 04 Dec 2025
Managing glacial and periglacial hazards in the Alps: a geohistorical approach
Abstract. Through a geo-historical study, we compile an inventory of glacial and periglacial events that have prompted risk management actions in the European Alps over the last centuries. This management is analysed through seven guiding principles/pillars: hazard understanding, preventive information, land-use planning, monitoring and surveillance, hazard-vulnerability-exposure mitigation, crisis management preparedness, and resilience. The objective of this research is to examine how risk management methods have evolved over time and across different Alpine countries. The western Swiss Alps and the French Alps, home to the highest elevations, have experienced most of the major events.
Certain events, such as the 1892 collapse of the Tête Rousse glacier's water pocket, represent key turning points that mark a rupture or renewal in how risks are perceived and addressed. Today, glacial and periglacial risk management benefits from improved understanding of both hazards and vulnerabilities. Our geo-historical analysis highlights that the inclusion of the population in crisis management has become an increasingly significant factor in making-decision processus. However, current risk management practices remain limited and would benefit from more participatory approaches, which in turn depends partly on the perception of hazards and their integration into management practices.
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Status: open (until 15 Jan 2026)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-5614', Wilfried Haeberli, 10 Dec 2025
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Juliette Bazin, 22 Dec 2025
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We would like to thank reviewer W. Haeberli for this insightful and discerning evaluation, which has helped us identify several important limitations in our manuscript. In response, we plan to revise the article to strengthen its scientific and international perspective.
We will expand and rebalance the state of the art by more explicitly incorporating major developments from the Swiss context, in particular the structuring role of public policies, national research programmes and seminal work that has contributed to the emergence of integrated approaches to hazard and risk assessment (notably within the framework of GAPHAZ). International references will be added to better contextualise our contribution in European and international scientific debates.
In addition, we will expand the discussion on the evolution of glacial and periglacial risk management concepts, highlighting the epistemological and institutional turning points linked to certain major events (notably Mattmark), climate change and technological advances. We note here the desire to develop the notion of risk culture, which differs according to the experiences of Alpine countries.
We will show in the discussion that this inventory aims to be as exhaustive as possible in terms of the main Alpine events. Nevertheless, we will explain that the inventory of risk management methods remains unevenly documented across countries, particularly in Austria and Italy, due to difficulties in accessing sources. However, this reworking of the article will make it possible to fill in some gaps concerning the Swiss case.
Finally, we will take full account of all the remarks on the text and technical corrections proposed, particularly with regard to the bibliography and the consistency of references.
Bazin J., Ravanel L., Caroly S.,
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-5614-AC1
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Juliette Bazin, 22 Dec 2025
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Comments by Wilfried Haeberli
General:
The authors present a geo-historical study about events which prompted risk management actions in the European Alps. This is an interesting, important but also serious, complex and difficult topic, the treatment of which requires rich international knowledge and practical experience. The submitted text only partially fulfils such expectations. It is quite heavily biased concerning its sources (many French sources, websites, references of limited scientific value) and lacks fundamentally important policy-related developments in Switzerland with their influence on the evolution of international climate-related concepts for integrative and future-oriented high-mountain hazard assessments and risk management under conditions of ongoing climate change (GAPHAZ).
The following comments concerning such Swiss developments may help the authors to describe the existing information in a more adequate, equilibrated and critically reflected way. This unavoidably involves references to my own work and to the work of my close colleagues (sorry). The corresponding references are given here to provide the authors access to important sources of information. The Cambridge UP book “The High-Mountain Cryosphere – Environmental Changes and Human Risks” (Huggel et al. 2015) together with the Elsevier book on “Snow and Ice-Related Hazards, Risks, and Disasters” (Haeberli and Whiteman 2021) contain rich information and numerous references. It would be adequate to cite these international key publications.
The 1965 Mattmark ice avalanche catastrophe marks a decisive turning point concerning the recognition and treatment of glacier hazards in Switzerland. The Swiss Federal Department of the Interior established a working group on glacier hazards (“Arbeitsgruppe für gefährliche Gletscher”), which collected information on past events to derive practice-oriented rules and empirical approaches to recognize and assess glacier hazards (Haeberli 1983, Alean 1985, Haeberli et al. 1985). Huggel et al. (2004) later published an updated version for practice-oriented hazard assessments in view of possible international discussion and application. The completion of this systematic practice-oriented scientific work specially created a basis for overcoming the before primarily used “dogma” of “unforeseeable natural events” as used (under political pressure) in the Mattmark court case to acquit the responsible engineers – a judgement today quite generally considered to have been a miscarriage of justice (Marti 2025).
In a special investigation initiated by the Swiss National Parliament, the analysis of the 1987 flood catastrophes comprised a systematic analysis of about 600 primarily high-altitude debris flows in view of technical recommendations for future hazard assessment and protection work (Rickenmann and Zimmermann 1993). The large number of glacial and periglacial source areas had made clear that environmental conditions were changing beyond historical-empirical precedence and that comprehensive assessments of continued system changes had to be applied. This was in contrast to the narrow-linear and retrospective consideration of past glacier events only as later applied with the “Inventar gefährlicher Gletscher” (inventory of dangerous glaciers) at VAW/ETHZ and the EU-project GLACIORISK using similar narrow and retrospective approaches.
Three Swiss National Research Programmes (NRPs) – established by the Swiss National Parliament in view of policy-related knowledge development – contained specific projects about cold-mountain hazards in view of improved, future-oriented approaches to be applied by responsible authorities: Within NRP 31 on Climate Change and Natural Catastrophes, the project “Eisschwund und Naturkatastrophen im Hochgebirge” (ice vanishing and natural catastrophes in high mountains; Haeberli et al. 1999) established the connexion with climate change and its effect on cold-mountain hazards/risks, including transdisciplinary case studies on flood protection from periglacial lakes at Gruben (Haeberli et al. 2001), debris flows from creeping permafrost at Pontresina (both with heavy construction work carried out on behalf of federal, cantonal and municipal authorities) and stability aspects of a polythermal hanging glacier on permafrost of the Eiger W-face. NRP 48 on Landscapes and Habitats of the Alps contained the project GISALP with a focus on spatiotemporal information as a planning tool concerning rapid changes of high-Alpine environments under the effects of climate change (Haeberli et al. 2007). NRP 61 with its project NELAK on new lakes forming because of glacier retreat and related chances and risks paved the way for comprehensive, future-oriented hazard and risk assessments (Haeberli et al. 2013).
The EU-funded PACE-project on permafrost and climate in Europe (Harris et al. 2009, Etzelmüller et al. 2020) for the first time produced a comprehensive scientific knowledge basis about permafrost in the Alps and its long-term changes under global change, including deep boreholes for long-term permafrost monitoring and recommendations for hazard anticipation. This together with the previous works on lake outbursts, ice avalanches and debris flows now formed the basis for international guidelines related to comprehensive/integrative, future-oriented assessments of glacier and permafrost-related hazard in warming-up cold mountain regions (GAPHAZ and Allen et al. 2022 as cited in the text). The application of high-tech remote sensing technologies today has become standard (cf. early Swiss work by Huggel et al. 2002 and Kääb et al. 2005).
Technical remarks:
Some more technical remarks can be found in the annotated text file. The reference list must be carefully controlled and in places completed (several citations in the text are not in the reference list, bibliographic information is missing or incomplete in several cases, not all weblinks seem to be working).
References:
Etzelmüller, B., Guglielmin, M., Hauck, C., Hilbich, C., Hoelzle, M., Isaksen, K., Noetzli, J., Oliva, M., and Ramos, M. (2020):Twenty years of European mountain permafrost dynamics – the PACE legacy, Environmental Research Letters 15, 104070. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/abae9d
Haeberli, W. (1983): Frequency and characteristics of glacier floods in the Swiss Alps. Annals of Glaciology, 4, 85-90.
Haeberli, W. and Whiteman, C. (2021): Snow and Ice-Related Hazards, Risks, and Disasters. Elsevier, Amsterdam. ISBN 978-0-12-817129-5
Haeberli, W., Alean, J.C., Müller, P. and Funk, M. (1989): Assessing risks from glacier hazards in high mountain regions: some experiences in the Swiss Alps. Annals of Glaciology 13, 96-102.
Haeberli, W., Bütler, M., Huggel, C., Müller, H. & Schleiss, A. (2013): NELAK – Neue Seen als Folge des Gletscherschwundes im Hochgebirge – Chancen und Risiken. Forschungsbericht NFP 61. Zürich, vdf Hochschulverlag AG an der ETH Zürich, 300p.
Haeberli, W., Kääb, A., Hoelzle, M., Bösch, H., Funk, M., Vonder Mühll, D. und Keller, F. (1999): Eisschwund und Naturkatastrophen im Hochgebirge. Schlussbericht NFP 31, v/d/f Hochschulverlag ETH Zürich.
Haeberli, W., Kääb, A., Vonder Mühll, D. and Teysseire, Ph. (2001): Prevention of outburst floods from periglacial lakes at Grubengletscher, Valais, Swiss Alps. Journal of Glaciology, 47/156, 111-122.
Haeberli, W., Keller, F., Krüsi, B., Egli, M., Rothenbühler, C., Meilwes, J. und Gruber, S. (2007): GISALP – raum-zeitliche Information über schnelle Klimaänderungen in hochalpinen Umweltsystemen als strategisches Werkzeug für Analyse, Kommunikation, partizipative Planung und Management im Tourismusgebiet Oberengadin. Forschungsbericht NFP 48, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds, vdf Hochschulverlag ETH Zürich, 213p.
Harris, C., Arenson, L.U., Christiansen, H.H., Etzelmüller, B., Frauenfelder, R., Gruber, S., Haeberli, W., Hauck, C., Hoelzle, M., Humlum, O., Isaksen, K., Kääb, A., Kern-Lütschg. M.A., Lehning, M., Matsuoka, N., Murton, J.B., Nötzli, J., Phillips, M., Ross, N., Seppälä, M., Springman, S.M. and Vonder Mühll, D. (2009): Permafrost and climate in Europe: Monitoring and modelling thermal, geomorphological and geotechnical responses. Earth-Science Reviews 92, 117-171.
Huggel, C., Carey, M., Clague, J.J. and Kääb, A. (2015): The High-Mountain Cryosphere – Environmental Changes and Human Risks. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-06584-0
Huggel, C., Haeberli, W., Kääb, A., Bieri, D. and Richardson, S. (2004): An assessment procedure for glacial hazards in the Swiss Alps. Canadian Geotechnical Journal 41, 1068-1083.
Kääb, A., Huggel, C., Fischer, L., Guex, S., Paul, F., Roer, I., Salzmann, N., Schlaefli, S., Schmutz, K., Schneider, D., Strozzi, T. and Weidmann, Y. (2005): Remote sensing of glacier- and permafrost-related hazards in high mountains: an overview. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 5, 527–554.
Marti, K. (2025): Der steinige Weg vom Freispruch zum Fehlurteil. In: Joris, E., Hg. Mattmark 1965 – Erinnerungen, Gerichtsurteile, Italienisch-Schweizerische Verflechtungen. Rotpunktverlag. ISBN 978-03973-072-8
Rickenmann, D. and Zimmermann, M. (1993): The 1987 debris flows in Switzerland: Documentation and analysis. Geomorphology 8, 175–189.