Panarchy and sustainable risk prevention by managing protection forests in mountain areas
Résumé
Mountain forests can prevent or reduce the risk posed by rockfall and ava-lanches, but to provide this service continuously most forests need to be managed. This paper explains the Panarchy theory and applies it to the management of a mountain forests that protect against rockfall. Using this theory in a simulation model helps to understand the interactions be-tween protection forests, rockfall and forest organisations that have to take decisions on manag-ing rockfall risks. We show that simulations based on the Panarchy theory, in which these dif-ferent actors are linked, provide insight in the effects of different risk and forest management strategies and their costs on the long term. In many cases, innovative forest management could be sufficient to reach an acceptable level of safety. In the remaining cases, where technical pro-tective measures are needed, an existing forest cover still has a mitigating effect meaning that less expensive protective constructions would suffice.