India is regularly associated with heat, spicy food, masses of people – and avalanches? Although not a phenomenon that immediately springs to mind, Indian avalanches are part and parcel of everyday life at the moment for SLF employee Yves Bühler. At the beginning of April 2012 he left Switzerland with his family to work for three months at the Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) in Manali.

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Switzerland is characterised by mountains. Many settlements therefore need protection against landslides and erosion. Plants are often used to stabilise slopes, in addition to wooden and concrete constructions. A new experimental device, developed by SLF technicians, will assist scientists to quantify the stabilising effects of plants.

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A new Swiss test-site for avalanche experiments has been built to study the overall dynamic behaviour of dense-flow and powder-snow avalanches and to measure avalanche impact forces along their path. The site began operation in 1997/1998 and is a milestone of avalanche dynamics research at the WSL-SLF.

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When Switzerland's athletes compete for medals at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, the SLF will be part of the team as well. Local snow and weather forecasts produced by the SLF will enable the team to prepare their competition skis in the best possible way.

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WSL develops and operates a probabilistic flood forecasting system for the pre-alpine catchment of the river Sihl. Floods can be detected early through a series of daily performed predictions.

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Snow cornices up to several meters high impressively show how strong the wind influences the snow cover in mountains. SLF investigates where the wind erodes and deposits snow and how the snow changes during transport through experiments in a wind tunnel and at the Weissfluhjoch Versuchsfeld.

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Im Projekt „Feststofftransport in Gebirgs-Einzugsgebieten“ soll ein Verfahren entwickelt werden, um eine mögliche Geschiebefracht abzuschätzen, welche bei einem 100-jährlichen Ereignis in einem Gebirgsfluss mobilisiert werden kann

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White Risk is the SLF app for all those who engage in winter activities in the mountains outside marked and open pistes. It gives access to the interactive avalanche bulletin in German, French, Italian and English, as well as the latest snow and weather data for Switzerland. White Risk also provides useful background knowledge to assist in assessing the avalanche danger.

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Within the framework of an international research project, the SLF and its German and Austrian partners are using a radar system to conduct a non-destructive investigation of the snowpack from underneath. The goal is to observe the individual layers of the snowpack and their properties and change over time.

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Various accidents have shown that rescuers can be endangered in the aftermath of avalanche accidents. For this reason, the SLF has responded to an initiative of ICAR (the International Commission for Alpine Rescue) by joining forces with various partners to produce a Rescue Compass for professional rescuers – a weatherproof manual together with a checklist in the form of a dial. It is a practical risk management tool for use in the field.

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