Shape still matters: rockfall interactions with trees and deadwood in a mountain forest uncover a new facet of rock shape dependency

Ringenbach, Adrian; Bebi, Peter; Bartelt, Perry; Rigling, Andreas; Christen, Marc; Bühler, Yves; Stoffel, Andreas; Caviezel, Andrin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-11-779-2023

Articles | Volume 11, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-11-779-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-11-779-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 4

Research article

|

14 Aug 2023

Research article |

| 14 Aug 2023

Shape still matters: rockfall interactions with trees and deadwood in a mountain forest uncover a new facet of rock shape dependency

Adrian Ringenbach, Peter Bebi, Perry Bartelt, Andreas Rigling, Marc Christen, Yves Bühler, Andreas Stoffel, and Andrin Caviezel

Data sets

Shape still matters – experimental quantification of deadwood effects on rockfall dynamics A. Ringenbach, G. R. Schmucki, G. Meyrat, P. Bebi, G. Ortner, N. Brožová, J. Munch, S. Völk, E. Stihl, A. Bast, C. Simeon, J. Bleiker, M. Guetg, M. A. S. Moreno, P. Mayer, and A. Caviezel https://doi.org/10.16904/envidat.359

Short summary

Swiss researchers carried out repeated rockfall experiments with rocks up to human sizes in a steep mountain forest. This study focuses mainly on the effects of the rock shape and lying deadwood. In forested areas, cubic-shaped rocks showed a longer mean runout distance than platy-shaped rocks. Deadwood especially reduced the runouts of these cubic rocks. The findings enrich standard practices in modern rockfall hazard zoning assessments and strongly urge the incorporation of rock shape effects.