Université de Fribourg

State of the art in rockfall – forest interactions

Dorren, Luuk ; Berger, Frédéric ; Jonsson, Martin J. ; Krautblatter, Michael ; Mölk, Michael ; Stoffel, Markus ; Wehrli, André

In: Schweizerische Zeitschrift fur Forstwesen, 2007, vol. 158, no. 6, p. 128-141

To effectively prevent rockfall related disasters below forested slopes, silvicultural, eco-engineering, civil engineering or mixed techniques can be used. To do this in a cost-efficient manner it is necessary to know the following: 1) where rockfall events occur and which magnitudes are likely, 2) to what extent the forest reduces the run-out distances, the jump heights and the energies of rocks...

Université de Fribourg

Assessing the protective effect of mountain forests against rockfall using a 3D simulation model

Stoffel, Markus ; Wehrli, André ; Kühne, Roderick ; Dorren, Luuk K.A. ; Perret, Simone ; Kienholz, Hans

In: Forest Ecology and Management, 2006, vol. 225, p. 1-3

We used one of the few rockfall models explicitly taking trees into account and compared the results obtained with the 3D simulation model RockyFor with empirical data on tree impacts at three mountain forests in Switzerland. Even though we used model input data with different resolutions at the study sites, RockyFor accurately predicted the spatial distribution of trajectory frequencies at all...