Geog 312: Natural Hazards
			(return to tutorial assignments)
	Avalanche hazards exercise
	The site of Juneau, the capital city of Alaska, is prone to avalanches, debris flows and floods. 1. Examine the 1:24,000 map of Juneau and its vicinity. What evidence is there on the map that avalanches are a significant hazard in this area? 2. Highways to outlying villages are often cut-off by snow-slides. For example, Thane, at the southern end of the highway, was cut off in March 2000 by a large avalanche. The event was captured on video from the opposite shore of the Gastineau Channel. See http://www.juneaualaska.com/stories/avalanche/ for the news story and video. 3. Avalanches from Mt Juneau also threaten parts of the city of Juneau itself, which receives an average of 2.5 m of snow per year. TASK Assume that you are appointed as an emergency management official in Juneau. One of your responsibilities is to assess the present and future avalanche hazard to the city. You have six months (=20 minutes) to prepare an action plan. 1. What research would you plan to undertake? 2. What forecasting tools would you employ or develop? 3. What mitigation measures would you consider? 4. Would you consider recommending avalanche zoning by-laws? What would be the basis for those? 5. Would you consider recommending expropriation of private property in order to reduce the inferred hazard?