International Snow Science Workshop Grenoble - Chamonix Mont-Blanc - 2013 The avalanche cadaster of the Valle d’Aosta Region (NW Italian Alps): the new born web portal (http://catastovalanghe.partout.it/) A. Debernardi 1*, V. Segor 2 1 Fondazione Montagna sicura, Villa Cameron, Località Villard de la Palud 1, 11013 Courmayeur (AO), Italy; 2 Ufficio neve e valanghe, Assetto idrogeologico dei bacini montani, Regione Autonoma Valle d’Aosta, Loc. Amérique 33, 11020 Quart (AO), Italy. ABSTRACT: The Region of Aosta Valley is located in the far north-western part of Italy and share borders, to the north and west, with Switzerland and France. More than 60% of its territory is above 2000 m a.s.l. of altitudes. Avalanches are natural phenomena that in the context of this mountainous region may have a significant influence on land use, on the ordinary course of human businesses and on the economic and touristic activities. That’s way it’s essential for the regional administration to have tools able to summarize, preserve and make easily accessible the historical information related to ava- lanches. After many years dedicated to organize data, the Snow and Avalanche Warning Service has reached the goal of putting on-line the avalanche cadaster, with a dedicated space on the Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta website (http://www.regione.vda.it/), where the public can access the infor- mation about all the documented avalanches. The web portal, developed in collaboration with the software company IN.VA. S.p.A., consists of three geonavigators that are cartographic tools allowing the users to view the avalanche limits, overlapping technical maps with orthophotomaps, and of two applications that make available all the information, alphanumeric data and images related to ava- lanches. The avalanche cadaster web portal significantly enhances many years of detailed cataloging and updating, performed by the office staff. Representing a solid base for future studies in this field, it is a modern tool, useful for professionals, practitioners, researchers, students and everybody that could be interested in the topic. KEYWORDS: avalanches cadaster, web portal, Aosta Valley, GIS, historical memory. different nature. During the creation of the com- 1 INTRODUCTION puterized database it was necessary to answer to three main questions related to the cadastre: The Region of Aosta Valley is located in the "Who are you?", "Where are you from?", "How far north-western part of Italy and share borders, we will evolve in the future?". to the north and west, with Switzerland and Hereinafter are synthetically described the France. More than 60% of its territory is above main items that compose the structure of the 2000 m a.s.l. of altitudes. Avalanches are natu- web avalanche cadastre today. ral phenomena that in the context of this moun- tainous region may have a significant influence on land use, on the ordinary course of human 2 2005-2013: MAIN NUMBERS OF THE businesses and on the economic and touristic AVALANCHE CADASTER activities. That’s way it’s essential for the re- gional administration to have tools able to sum- At the end of winter 2012-2013 the cadastre had marize, preserve and make easily accessible 2,033 avalanches involving an area of about the historical information related to avalanches. 15% of the regional territory (Fig. 1). Since 2005, the year in which was started the reorganization and digitization of cartograph- ic and alphanumeric data of the avalanche ca- dastre, the office staff had to deal with issues of ______________________ * Corresponding author address: Debernardi A., Fondazione Montagna sicura - Montagne Sûre, Valle d’Aosta (I); tel: +39 (0)165 776854; fax: +39 (0)165 776813; email: ade- [email protected] Figure 1 Limits of avalanches (in white) of the whole Aosta Valley updated to 2013. 446 International Snow Science Workshop Grenoble - Chamonix Mont-Blanc - 2013 The Office has 35,000 photos to document all the avalanches surveyed until now: of these For each one of the last eight winter sea- 11,500 were old photos printed, now all sons were created GIS layers containing the scanned, while 23,500 were created with digital perimeters of the surveyed avalanches, so that cameras over the past eight winter seasons. was possible to report in cartography more than 3,000 avalanches: of these, 832 were found to be a new phenomenon for the avalanche cadas- 3 THE DIGITAL AVALANCHE CADASTRE tre (Fig. 2). In October 2007, IN.VA. S.p.A., a regional software society, together with the Snow and Avalanche Office, developed the digital Ava- lanche Cadastre program. This program was intended to feed the new-born database based on Oracle (Fig. 4). The main stages in developing this program has been: structuring a documentary archive, organizing cartographic layers and creating functionalities designed to manage the infor- mation content. For each Aosta Valley municipality it’s pos- Figure 2 Increase in avalanches census within sible to obtain not only data about the known the regional avalanches cadastre from 1970 to phenomena but also about the related events, 2013. with information about the frequency of occur- rence, the size of the avalanche, the damages The borders of these avalanches, both as and so on. regards the phenomena documented for the first time, both in case the events have exceeded the historically known limits, have been reported in cartography: each avalanche has been linked with a rich database (Fig. 3). Figure 4 The application digital avalanche ca- dastre. 4 THE AVALANCHE CADASTER ON THE WEB 4.1 The cadaster web portal During the second half of 2011 our office began the design of the new web avalanche cadastre. This application was strongly support- ed by the Regional Administration, in order to make available the documentation and the- knowledge about avalanches to a larger number of users. Figure 3 Site inspection on the avalanche ac- The web portal dedicated to the avalanche cumulation with GPS equipment. cadastre is designed so that you can easily find 447 International Snow Science Workshop Grenoble - Chamonix Mont-Blanc - 2013 access to geonavigators, and consult the big The philosophy adopted for the geonaviga- database implemented until today (Fig. 5). tor directed to an advanced user was instead to The application allows to find a complete make available the largest number of carto- view of each phenomenon (avalanche mapping graphic information related to each avalanche and correlated information) in a few seconds. phenomenon (Fig. 6). Figure 6 The reserved access geonavigator Such an approach certainly makes it more difficult to interpret the huge amount of chart data, but it’s possible to perform a series of very Figure 5 The home page of the avalanche ca- useful analysis and interpretations. daster. To make easily disposable all the data that populates the Cadastre database, several spe- cific theming were created that allow a prompt During the design and the development of identification of the phenomenon you are inter- the web application, it was decided to divide the ested with. Besides, all the surveyed avalanches site into two areas: one for general users and can be differentiated for the quality of the data, one for professionals, researchers and academ- the exposure to the detachment, the share of ics. accumulation zone or detachment. We payed specific attention to the research and identification of avalanche phenomena in 4.2 Two geonavigators: simplified and advanced cartography. You can search an avalanche both The simplified geonavigator is intended for on the map (through a selection point, linear or general users, therefore it was developed so to areal), and using its avalanche code, if you are make easier the reading of map information. To aware of that but you don’t know exactly where simplify the consultations it was decided to it’s located. merge the perimeters of the avalanches related Once you have selected the avalanche pol- to the same phenomenon. The perimeter high- ygons you can easily observe their shape, lighted in cartography is therefore the sum of the thanks to specific zooms, and consult their al- events that, from the beginning of the seventies, phanumeric data, thanks to the summary sheet have been surveyed thus reporting the maxi- and the three links to the Alphanumeric part (de- mum dimensions for each site known. tailed schedule of the event, catalogue of imag- The user also has the possibility to view the es, catalogue of all the dates in which the ava- avalanches throughout the region, or only those lanche has been documented). of a single municipality. 448 International Snow Science Workshop Grenoble - Chamonix Mont-Blanc - 2013 The avalanches limits selected can be also rimeter of a specific avalanche event if available exported on flight simulators in 3D-format KML in cartography (Fig. 9). (Google Earth) or as traces for the Atlas applica- It has been developed an area of tion. The transposition of the avalanche on a 3D accreditation from which is possible to request a support can make the chart information con- username and a password and then have free tained in the Cadastre easier to read (Fig. 7). access to the private area for advanced users. Figure 7 The avalanche called “Buthier” fallen on the 15th Dec. 2008 in Cogne displayed on Figure 8 Web application to browse, search and Google Earth. download the data. 4.3 The software database consultation Once you have received the credentials, you Together with the cartographic part two ap- can download the untreated data related to the plications have been developed that are useful researches carried out (avalanches photos, var- on one hand to make available all avalanche ious attachments, Excel tables showing the date warning Cards “Modello 7 AINEVA” already digi- of the fall of the avalanches selected and the talized, and on the other hand to consult all the limits of avalanches in shape file format).