Geotechnical engineering, also known as geotechnics, is the branch of civil engineering concerned with the engineering behavior of earth materials. It uses the principles of soil mechanics and rock mechanics to solve its engineering problems. It also relies on knowledge of geology, hydrology, geophysics, and other related sciences.
Mountaineering, mountain climbing, or alpinism is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas that have become sports in their own right. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, and bouldering are also considered variants of mountaineering by some, but are part of a wide group of mountain sports.
Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout its life cycle, starting when, under suitable conditions, the ice crystals form in the atmosphere, increase to millimeter size, precipitate and accumulate on surfaces, then metamorphose in place, and ultimately melt, slide or sublimate away.
Landslides, also known as landslips, or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of environments, characterized by either steep or gentle slope gradients, from mountain ranges to coastal cliffs or even underwater, in which case they are called submarine landslides.
A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant concern in agriculture, civil engineering and public health. Human changes to the environment often increase the intensity and frequency of flooding. Examples for human changes are land use changes such as deforestation and removal of wetlands, changes in waterway course or flood controls such as with levees. Global environmental issues also influence causes of floods, namely climate change which causes an intensification of the water cycle and sea level rise. For example, climate change makes extreme weather events more frequent and stronger. This leads to more intense floods and increased flood risk.
A natural disaster is the very harmful impact on a society or community after a natural hazard event. Some examples of natural hazard events include avalanches, droughts, earthquakes, floods, heat waves, landslides, tropical cyclones, volcanic activity and wildfires. Additional natural hazards include blizzards, dust storms, firestorms, hails, ice storms, sinkholes, thunderstorms, tornadoes and tsunamis. A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property. It typically causes economic damage. How bad the damage is depends on how well people are prepared for disasters and how strong the buildings, roads, and other structures are. Scholars have been saying that the term natural disaster is unsuitable and should be abandoned. Instead, the simpler term disaster could be used. At the same time the type of hazard would be specified. A disaster happens when a natural or human-made hazard impacts a vulnerable community. It results from the combination of the hazard and the exposure of a vulnerable society.
An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope, such as a hill or mountain. Avalanches can be triggered spontaneously, by factors such as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, other animals, and earthquakes. Primarily composed of flowing snow and air, large avalanches have the capability to capture and move ice, rocks, and trees.
A glissade is a climbing technique mostly used in mountaineering and alpine climbing where a climber starts a controlled slide down a snow and/or ice slope to speed up their descent. Glissading is ideally done later in the day when the snow is softer.
Ski mountaineering is a skiing discipline that involves climbing mountains either on skis or carrying them, depending on the steepness of the ascent, and then descending on skis. There are two major categories of equipment used, free-heel Telemark skis and skis based on Alpine skis, where the heel is free for ascents, but is fixed during descent. The discipline may be practiced recreationally or as a competitive sport.
A geologic hazard or geohazard is an adverse geologic condition capable of causing widespread damage or loss of property and life. These hazards are geological and environmental conditions and involve long-term or short-term geological processes. Geohazards can be relatively small features, but they can also attain huge dimensions and affect local and regional socio-economics to a large extent.
Mass wasting, also known as mass movement, is a general term for the movement of rock or soil down slopes under the force of gravity. It differs from other processes of erosion in that the debris transported by mass wasting is not entrained in a moving medium, such as water, wind, or ice. Types of mass wasting include creep, solifluction, rockfalls, debris flows, and landslides, each with its own characteristic features, and taking place over timescales from seconds to hundreds of years. Mass wasting occurs on both terrestrial and submarine slopes, and has been observed on Earth, Mars, Venus, Jupiter's moon Io, and on many other bodies in the Solar System.
A rockfall or rock-fall is a quantity/sheets of rock that has fallen freely from a cliff face. The term is also used for collapse of rock from roof or walls of mine or quarry workings. "A rockfall is a fragment of rock detached by sliding, toppling, or falling, that falls along a vertical or sub-vertical cliff, proceeds down slope by bouncing and flying along ballistic trajectories or by rolling on talus or debris slopes."
Heli-skiing is off-trail, downhill skiing or snowboarding where the skier reaches the top of the mountain by helicopter, instead of a ski lift.
The Galtür avalanche occurred on 23 February 1999 in the Alpine village of Galtür, Austria. At 50 m (160 ft) high and traveling at 290 km/h (180 mph), the powder avalanche overturned cars, destroyed buildings and buried 57 people. By the time rescue crews managed to arrive, 31 people had died. It was considered the worst Alpine avalanche in 40 years. Three major weather systems originating from the Atlantic accounted for large snowfalls totaling around four meters in the area. Freeze-thaw conditions created a weak layer on top of an existing snow pack; further snow was then deposited on top. This, coupled with high wind speeds, created large snow drifts and caused roughly 170,000 tons of snow to be deposited.
Landslide mitigation refers to several human-made activities on slopes with the goal of lessening the effect of landslides. Landslides can be triggered by many, sometimes concomitant causes. In addition to shallow erosion or reduction of shear strength caused by seasonal rainfall, landslides may be triggered by anthropic activities, such as adding excessive weight above the slope, digging at mid-slope or at the foot of the slope. Often, individual phenomena join to generate instability over time, which often does not allow a reconstruction of the evolution of a particular landslide. Therefore, landslide hazard mitigation measures are not generally classified according to the phenomenon that might cause a landslide. Instead, they are classified by the sort of slope stabilization method used:
The system safety concept calls for a risk management strategy based on identification, analysis of hazards and application of remedial controls using a systems-based approach. This is different from traditional safety strategies which rely on control of conditions and causes of an accident based either on the epidemiological analysis or as a result of investigation of individual past accidents. The concept of system safety is useful in demonstrating adequacy of technologies when difficulties are faced with probabilistic risk analysis. The underlying principle is one of synergy: a whole is more than sum of its parts. Systems-based approach to safety requires the application of scientific, technical and managerial skills to hazard identification, hazard analysis, and elimination, control, or management of hazards throughout the life-cycle of a system, program, project or an activity or a product. "Hazop" is one of several techniques available for identification of hazards.
Avalanche Skills Training is a standardized form of avalanche training in Canada. Although Avalanche Skills Training (AST) is typically learned by backcountry skiers and snowboarders, it is commonly recommended for all people who want to explore the backcountry by snowmobiling, snowshoeing, hiking, and all other backcountry activities. The training is provided in two levels: AST 1 and AST 2. AST 1 includes basic snow study and training on the use of a transceiver, probe and shovel in companion rescue. AST 1 is taught in two parts: a classroom session including lectures, PowerPoints, videos, demonstrations, and group exercises, along with a field session which includes various practices while on the mountain. To move on to AST 2, it is required to complete the AST 1 course. AST 2 concentrates on advanced snow study. AST 2 is taught through multiple days, typically including one day in a classroom setting for theory and discussions, along with multiple days of advanced training on the mountain. Further training instruct the use of explosives for avalanche control. AST is supported by the Canadian Avalanche Association and the Alpine Club of Canada. AST is offered by various companies which are usually offered in the backcountry of Canada due to the length of their season of snow and cold weather, making it an exceptional location to conduct avalanche skills training. It is important to note that avalanche skills training is not for everybody. There have been 37 deaths in the United States recorded from avalanche accidents in 2021 alone. The information learned through the avalanche skills training courses is to prepare for identifying potential hazards in the back-country, understanding the hazards communicated through an avalanche forecast, identifying and managing your risk, recognizing avalanche terrain, planning trips that avoid or minimize exposure to avalanche terrain, and rescuing your partners if they are caught in an avalanche.
Flood management describes methods used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters. Flooding can be caused by a mix of both natural processes, such as extreme weather upstream, and human changes to waterbodies and runoff. Flood management methods can be either of the structural type and of the non-structural type. Structural methods hold back floodwaters physically, while non-structural methods do not. Building hard infrastructure to prevent flooding, such as flood walls, is effective at managing flooding. However, it is best practice within landscape engineering to rely more on soft infrastructure and natural systems, such as marshes and flood plains, for handling the increase in water.
Avalanche rescue involves locating and retrieving people who have been buried in avalanches.
An ice dam is an ice build-up on the eaves of sloped roofs of heated buildings that results from melting snow under a snow pack reaching the eave and freezing there. Freezing at the eave impedes the drainage of meltwater, which adds to the ice dam and causes backup of the meltwater, which may cause water leakage into the roof and consequent damage to the building and its contents if the water leaks through the roof.
