Introduction

Text Box: Snow Avalanches, rapidly moving fluidized masses of snow are a serious threat to skiers and structures in mountainous areas. As more mountainous areas are developed for winter sports and housing, snow avalanches are causing more deaths, structural damage and blocked highways. Snow avalanches are very dangerous because of their great force and their high speed, which can reach up to 80 kilometers per hour. Thousands or millions of tons of snow exert forces sufficient to destroy non-reinforced structures in their path. Hundreds of snow avalanches occur each year in a mountainous area like Vancouver Island. Avalanches can be triggered naturally or by human activity. Naturally, avalanches triggered when the bonds that hold the snowpack together break from additional stresses created by factors such as rain, wind, rising temperatures and/or the weight of new snow. The vastly increase of winter climbing, hill walking, ski touring, logging, mining activities and city development lead greater numbers at hazard. Each year adds to the list of injuries or fatalities. The purpose of this project is to model the area that snow avalanches may occur potentially by using GIS. By overlaying the spatial distribution for each factors, this is possible to map the area associate with snow avalanches. After mapping out the area that is both populated and high risk of snow avalanche, further prevention and mitigation can be done there. The following factors are going to be considered:                                                            Natural Triggers                         Human Triggers                        Impact on Elevation                                    Tourism Activities                     Landuse Vegetation                                 Mining Activities                        Transportation Network The idea of this project come from another course, Geography 312- Natural Hazard, I take this semester. There are 2 reasons I pick this topic: First, snow avalanche is one of the common natural hazard in BC. Second, GIS data of BC are easier to acquire.
Introduction        Data Collection          Methodology         Spatial Analysis       Conclusion
Text Box: Introduction        Data Collection          Methodology         Spatial Analysis       Conclusion
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