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Tree Rings and Natural Hazards pp 183–192Cite as

State of the Art in Debris-Flow Research: The Role of Dendrochronology

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Part of the book series: Advances in Global Change Research ((AGLO,volume 41))

Abstract

Debris flows and their volcanic counterparts lahars are one of the most destructive mass movement process worldwide, being responsible for hundreds of death every year and leading to horrific multi-thousand death tolls every decade or so. Consequently, debris flows have been the focus on intensive research with hundreds of papers appearing annually on various aspects of debris flow research. For most researchers and practitioners it is difficult to keep abreast of all advances in debris flow research and to extract the most relevant publications. Several dedicated conferences have been held whose sole focus is debris flows. In 2005 a book on debris flows and related processes was published (Jakob and Hungr 2005) to offer a more systematic review of the state-of-the-art. The book was published in 2005 and thus reflects mostly knowledge up to 2003 or 2004. With that it is outdated in some fields. It is clearly impossible to replace the 2005 book and provide a comprehensive review of all significant advances in debris flow science in the space of this chapter. The author has therefore attempted to provide a short summary and highlight outstanding questions and how they can be addressed, at least in part, by application of dendrochronology.

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Acknowledgements

Susan Cannon kindly provided materials for the debris flows and wildfire section and reviewed an early draft. Markus Stoffel and Michelle Bollschweiler provided helpful comments on a draft of this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. BGC Engineering Inc, D-84489, Burghausen, Germany

    Matthias Jakob

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  1. Matthias Jakob
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Correspondence to Matthias Jakob .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. Geologie, Labor für Dendrogeomorphologie, Universität Bern, Baltzerstr. 1-3, Bern, 3012, Switzerland

    Markus Stoffel

  2. Inst. Geologie, Labor für Dendrogeomorphologie, Universität Bern, Baltzerstr. 1-3, Bern, 3012, Switzerland

    Michelle Bollschweiler

  3. Dept. Geography, Texas State University, University Drive 601, San Marcos, 78666-4616, Texas, USA

    David R. Butler

  4. Dept. Geography, University of Western Ontario, London, N6A 5C2, Ontario, Canada

    Brian H. Luckman

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Jakob, M. (2010). State of the Art in Debris-Flow Research: The Role of Dendrochronology. In: Stoffel, M., Bollschweiler, M., Butler, D., Luckman, B. (eds) Tree Rings and Natural Hazards. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 41. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8736-2_17

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