located at a safe distance from the debris flow channel. The system has been installed in the Lattenbach torrent, Tyrol (Austria), and in the Illgraben torrent, Canton of Valais (Switzerland). The low-frequency infrasonic signals emitted by a debris flow can be monitored and correlated with seismic signals. During the passage of different debris flows, several surges were identified by ultrasonic gauges and detected in the time series and the running spectra of infrasonic data.
Huaxi Gao presents in his “Study on Spatial Prediction and Time Forecast of Landslide Hazard” components of an early warning system in Xincheng District, Badong County, China. Studies on spatial prediction and zonation of regional landslide hazard are developed using an information content model. Using this model, he is able to quantify and predict the probability of landslide initiations with different magnitudes and with recurrence intervals ranging between 5 and 10 years. The scientific research results serve as a basis for disaster prevention and risk reduction as well as for disaster management with socio-economic development.
Within the paper “Climate Input Parameters for Real Time Online Risk Assessment”, Richard Petritsch and Hubert Hasenauer investigate the link between the assessment of natural risks in combination with the actual or forecasted weather situation. They use the climate interpolation routine DAYMET to construct a new climate database with a standard interface and implement a framework for providing daily updated weather data for online daily weather interpolations across regions. The core of the work is the implementation of the DAYMET interpolation routines within the new framework. Two possible interpolation routines, which use the optimal number of stations, are investigated. Respective error bounds are assessed using an independent validation data set, and the results are compared with a previous validation study. Finally, the developed methodology is derived for the calculation of a fire danger index for a 1 km grid over Austria.
The sixth contribution authored by Tsung-Yi Pan, Lung-Yao Chang, Jihn-Sung Lai, Hsiang-Kuan Chang, Cheng-Shang Lee and Yih-Chi Tan is titled “Coupling typhoon rainfall forecasting with overland-flow modelling for early warning of inundation”. In Taiwan, potential inundation maps have been widely used as a non-structural risk mitigation strategy for floods. The authors point out that spatiotemporal rainfall distributions must be addressed to improve the accuracy of inundation forecasting for emergency response operations. Therefore, they present a system for 24-h forecast early warning system of inundation by coupling the forecasting of typhoon rainfall with the modelling of overland flow. The forecast of the typhoon rainfall is carried out by the climatology model (TRCM) in order to approximate dynamically the spatiotemporal rainfall distribution based on typhoon tracks. The scheme is superior to traditional early warning method that determines the maximum extent and depth of inundation from conditional uniform rainfall. It can forecast spatiotemporal rainfall patterns, leading to improved performance of inundation forecasting, which is critical for emergency response operations.
The final contribution by Desiree Hilbring, Tanja Titzschkau, Alfons Buchmann, Gottfried Bonn, Friedemann Wenzel and Eberhard Hohnecker deals with “Earthquake Early Warning for Transport Lines”. This interdisciplinary work focuses on the immediate production of an alert map during an ongoing earthquake. Furthermore, a damage map representing the consequences to the railway infrastructure is calculated immediately after the strong motion phase. The procedure is based on a service-oriented architecture applying geospatial standards. It is aimed that the system architecture can be used in different geographical regions and can be potentially transferred to other types of natural hazards and infrastructure systems. Besides the general description of the architecture, an online demonstrator has been applied to a test area 