Projects / Programmes
Resilience of alpine environment from the perspective of natural hazards
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.12.00 |
Humanities |
Geography |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| P510 |
Natural sciences and mathematics |
Physical geography, geomorphology, pedology, cartography, climatology |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 5.07 |
Social Sciences |
Social and economic geography |
Natural hazards, resilience, risk management, damage, risk communication, governance, Slovenia, Alps
Researchers (24)
Organisations (3)
Abstract
Natural hazards endanger Alpine regions. In the context of Europe the Alpine regions are extremely important from the perspective of tourism, traffic connections and other activities. The activities of the modern society should be consistent with the magnitude, frequency and spatial characteristics of natural processes.
One of the main challenges of Slovenian society is how to reduce the financial consequences of natural hazards in the long term. In order to achieve that, our proposal is to apply the concept of resilience thinking based on the complexity of landscape as a social and natural system, taking into account the perspective of both space and time. Due to the fact that several other approaches were proven inefficient, the only possibility for long-term effective changes is the adaptation of a landscape system's social elements or strengthened resilience of society to the irregular functioning of natural processes.
The goal of the project is to analyse landscape resilience in the case of natural hazards in Alpine environment. The main project goal is to determine the effect of selected natural and socio-geographical landscape elements on the responsiveness of a landscape to crises and to establish the relationships between the crisis and the landscape recovery.
The plan is to reach this goal by means of a quantitative definition of past events and related geographic elements and processes. Our research will be supported by historical sources, interviews and geographic information systems.
Our analysis will be focused on a region in the Julian Alps, western Slovenia, where a number of different natural hazards occur. The following events will be considered:
1) the processes of mass movements in the valley of River Koritnica in Upper Soča Region,
2) 1976, 1998 and 2004 earthquakes in Soča Region and
3) the processes of mass movements in the neighbouring valleys of Upper Soča and Sava, including avalanches endangering the Predel and Vršič mountain pass.
The first phase will include a spatial and temporal comparison of selected landscapes based on indicators. The second phase will be focused on establishing a place-resilience model by means of selected indicators and calculating the resilience factor or index as well as assessing the duration of landscape recovery after a crisis.
The aim of this project is to improve some of the weaknesses of modern society, i.e. insufficient understanding of natural hazards, of the potential impact of natural hazards on key infrastructure, and insufficient understanding of resilience as the key approach to an integrated management of natural hazards.
Significance for science
This project is important for scientific development for the following reasons: - It dealt with a current issue in geography of natural hazards, - The project contributed to a better understanding of landscape processes, - It contributed to the development of new methods and models by applying them to Slovenian environment, - the project contributed to succesful implementation of field methods and theoretical application in the university curricula, - The project was focused on scientific debate about frequently neglected socialgeographical aspects of natural hazards, especially economic, damage and human aspects, - The project contributed to the promotion of geography as the key science for the comprehensive understanding of landscape, - Based on resilience and by implementing the perspective of natural hazards, it strengthens and promotes an interdisciplinary approach in geography and beyond in partnership.
Significance for the country
The results of this project will have a effect on reducing direct and indirect damage caused by natural disasters, The project positively contributes to sustainable economy because our model will promote population, infrastructure and social systems to protected areas and their safe integration into the landscape, within the project, the methodology for studying the relationship between natural disasters and population has been formulated and successfully applied, and can be successfully applied to other areas or used in related subjects, The project improves governance of natural hazards and facilitates decisions such as whether to invest in protective or risk prevention measures or instead just focus on disaster relief, With better knowledge on past events and modern resilience the project improved decisionmaking with regard to spatial planning and crises from both economic and socialgeographical perspectives. The project results will be available to insurance companies, infrastructure, ICT and other companies dealing with risk governance. The project increased the awareness of natural hazards, mainly due to the use of stateoftheart information technology (geographic information system) allowing for visual presentations of results in the broadest sense of the word. The concept of resilience from the perspective of natural hazards has an important value in education. The project raised awareness of population and change of the perception of natural hazards as an important component of the landscape. The project had a longterm effect on quality of life in Alpine landscapes.
Most important scientific results
Annual report
2014,
2015,
final report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Annual report
2015,
final report
