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Cost Model Approach to Identify Snow Avalanche prone Zones

Abstract

The snow avalanches are natural processes, occurring perhaps 1,000,000

times per year, worldwide. Lots of research work has been done in this area to
predict the snow avalanche region. This paper is also an attempt in this direction. A
cost model approach based on terrain slope factor, generates a map of the desired
area with labeling of risky zones for snow avalanche. This map could be useful in
other avalanche prediction models and for route planning & travel.

1. INTRODUCTION
There exists a wide class of methods for forecasting of avalanche hazards based on
conventional knowledge based assessment or statistical methods 1,2 . The study shows that
main factors that can cause an avalanche are terrain slope, wind speed & rapid change in
the temperature. Generally avalanches occur on slopes between 35 & 45 degrees. Sloped
less then 30 degrees seldom produces avalanches. The second cause of avalanches is
wind. Wind can deposit snow 10 times faster then snow falling. The weight of new or
wind blown snow overloads the strength of the buried weak layer. The weak layer
fractures and the slab becomes the avalanche. Rapid change in temperature causes rapid
melting of the snow and creates wet avalanches. Wet avalanches generally occurs during
summer on south facing slopes and dry avalanches occurs on north facing slopes in
winter.
The approach discussed in this paper considers the terrain slope feature to study the
avalanche prone area. The topography of the terrain plays an important role in the snow
avalanche and it does not change rapidly. So this approach based on topography of the
terrain can play an important role in other prediction models & statistical studies 3,4 . This
approach clearly identifies the ridges & narrow gully. Ridges are usually a very safe
place to travel but the gully is dangerous for movement. The output of this approach is a
colored map representing the risky zones, ridges, and gullies using different colours.
This paper describes the data analysis, representation of the topographic data, cost mode
approach, results & usefulness, and possible future improvements of the approach.

2. DATA ANALYSIS
The digital topographic data is used in the cost model approach. It can be generated by
digitizing topographic maps of desired area. The digitizer generates digital contours. A
TIN (Triangular Irregular Network) 5 scheme is applied over the digitized contours to
generate a DEM (Digital Elevation Model) of the desired area. This DEM contains the
height values of the terrain at regular interval along x & y-axis. Some other techniques
also exist to generate the DEM of desired area 6. Appropriate technique can be chosen
based on the availability of the input data to generate the DEM.

3. REPRESENTATION OF TOPOGRAPHIC DATA

The regular terrain contains infinite number of points. But it can be divided in to finite
number of points and these points can be mapped on a regular mesh. All points are
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disjoint and union of all the points will cover the regular space. Different kind of regular
mesh exists for spatial data representation as hexagonal grid, rectangular grid etc. A
rectangular grid is chosen for topographic data representation in the cost model approach.
Figure 1 shows how the terrain is divided in to small rectangular cells.

Figure 1 : Representation of the terrain as rectangular grid

The rectangular representation suits the representation of DEM and it gives the maximum
eight direction of connectivity (see fig 1.). Let us represent the full terrain space by S and
divide the space S in 'n' number of equal sized cells i.e.
n

S = ∑C
i=1
i

These cells will be the base unit of the cost model approach. A cell will represent a
uniform area on the terrain. The number of cells 'n' to represent a terrain space should be
sufficient in number so that the uniformity of the cell can be maintained. If 'n' is quite
small then it is possible that the area represented by a cell is not uniform and that can lead
to wrong results. Let us assume, the distance between the any two adjacent cells (say 'd')
will be same over the rectangular mesh.

4. COST MODEL APPROACH

This approach uses the terrain cells and fits a connected directed graph among the cells
(see fig. 2). The directed edges between two cells will represent the direction of flow.
These edges will be assigned some cost values based on the terrain slope between the
cells. Finally, these edge costs will participate in the classification of the cells in to
different categories.
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Figure 2. Representation of terrain as a directed graph

Let us consider two cells Ci & Cj. The elevation values of these cells are stored in DEM.
The elevation values for Ci is Ei and Cj is Ej. The slope of the edge between Ci & Cj will
be given by

EdgeSlope( i,j ) = ∂y / ∂x
Where
∂y = Ei - Ej
∂x = d

This approach assumes that slope less then 30 degree will be safe area. As the slope
increases, the chances of avalanche happening also increases. A threshold function
decides that on the basis of edge slope, what cost has to be assigned to the edge. This
threshold function uses a look-up-table for this purpose (see Table 1).

Slope Range
(In degrees) Cost

30 - 35 1
35 - 40 2
40 - 45 3
45 - 50 4
> 50 5

Table 1: Look up table for threshold function

The magnitude of the EdgeSlope (i,j) gives the slope and sign of the EdgeSlope(i,j) gives
the direction of the flow. If it is less then zero then direction of flow is from Ci cell to Cj
cell. If the value is greater then zero then direction of flow is from Cj to Ci.
The cost of every edge & direction of flow is calculated for the full directed graph. Now
this graph will be called a weighted graph because every edge is assigned some weight
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(cost). The edges of the weighted graph will contribute in to the classification of the cells.
Let us consider a cell Ci. It is directly connected with eight edges. Let us call these edges
the "first order edges". Similarly, the second order edges are those edges which are not
directly connected to Ci but only one cell apart. Figure 3 shows the concept of first,
second, third order edges.

Figure 3: Different kind of edges

If the order of an edge is more then five for a cell Ci then it will contribute very less in the
classification of the cell Ci. Let us consider up to fifth order edges. These edges will
contribute some value to the weight of the cell Ci on the basis of the cost of edge,
direction and order of the edge.
Weight of the each cell will be calculated by the formula:

8 8 8

(∑i=1
EdgeCost
i )/8 + (∑
i=1
EdgeCost
i )/16 + …………..+ (∑i=1
EdgeCost
i )/40
first order second order fifth order
component component component

This will generate a graph where all the cells will hold some numerical value. The cell
with high numeric value will be labeled as highly prone area for avalanche. This
approach very clearly identifies the ridges & gully areas.

Figure 4: (a) Edge network at ridges (b) Edge network at gully

Figure 4 (a) shows that the cells situated at ridges mostly have edges moving out of them
because they are relatively at higher position then surrounding cells. If the edge is coming
out of the cell then it gives negative weight to the cell and weight of the cell decreases.
The situation is opposite in case of gully. Figure 4(b) shows that most of the edges are
moving in to the cells because they are relatively at lower position then surrounding cells.
These edges give positive values to the cells and weight of the cell increases.
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To visualize this kind of graph on to the screen, a pseudo color scheme can be used in
this model. Weights of the cells can be scaled down between the limits of pseudo color
scale to display it on the screen.

REFERENCES
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