Snow avalanches can have highly destructive consequences in developed areas. Each year, avalanche catastrophes occur in mountain regions around the globe and cause unnecessary fatalities and severe damage to buildings and infrastructure. In some mountainous regions, especially in the European Alps, technical avalanche defence structures are built to increase the level of safety for inhabited areas; however, new infrastructure such as roads, railway lines and tourist facilities cause new risk potential in hazardous areas. As a result, the demand is increasing for technical avalanche protection solutions.

Avalanche defence structures and protection systems are used in most inhabited mountain regions worldwide. During the last decades, technical avalanche protection has evolved from a specialist field to an independent engineering branch that has gained importance in alpine countries such as Austria, Italy, France and Switzerland, as well as in other countries such as Canada, Iceland, Norway and USA.

This work is the first comprehensive, English-language overview of technical avalanche protection and establishes state-of-the-art best practices in the field. It covers the fundamentals of avalanche protection technology and includes plans, dimensions, construction and maintenance of defence structures. The editors have collaborated with an international team of experts from Austria, Canada, France, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Switzerland and USA to produce this landmark handbook.

The editors:
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Florian Rudolf-Miklau is an expert on torrent and avalanche control. In 2002 he became an advisor for technical protection and project financing at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management in Vienna. He is Chair of the Austrian standards committee ON-K 256 "Protection against natural hazards" and member of the advisory board of the INTERPRAEVENT research society as well as lecturer at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences and Vienna Technical University. He also acts as a court-certified expert.

Dipl.-Ing. Siegfried Sauermoser is director of the Tyrolean Section of the Forest Engineering Service in Torrent and Avalanche Control in Innsbruck, Austria. He has 12 years of work experience as project manager for avalanche barriers. He acts as Lecturer at the University of Vienna, University of Innsbruck and University Center Svalbard in Spitzbergen, Norway. He is a juridical certified expert for torrent and avalanche protection structures and a member of the Austrian Board for Alpine Safety.

Arthur I. Mears, P.E., has a B.S. in Civil Engineering and an M.S. in Geology from the University of Colorado in Boulder, USA. Based in Gunnison, he founded Arthur I. Mears, P.E., Inc. in 1981, specializing in avalanche, rockfall and debris-flow analysis and mitigation. He has been a consultant for over 1000 projects in 9 states and 8 countries.

The contributors to the handbook are leading European and American experts in avalanche protection.

Development of avalanches and avalanche protection: an historic overview
Avalanches: formation and effects
Basics and models for avalanche dynamics and effects
Analysis and evaluation and representation of avalanche risks
Planning of permanent avalanche protection measures
Protection systems and construction types
Design of permanent avalanche protection
Execution and maintenance management
Protection of buildings
Temporary avalanche protection and operation
Avalanche monitoring and event documentation
Summary, Outlook
References