Loss and damage databases are essential tools within the disaster risk management cycle for making informed decisions. However, even in data-rich countries such as Austria, no consistent and curated multi-hazard database is available. Based on the requirements of the United Nations, the European Union, as well as on national demands to deal with disaster impacts, we conceived and set up a demonstrator for a consistent multi-hazard national event-based loss and damage database that addresses event identification, loss accounting and disaster forensics according to international standards. We built our database on already existing data from administration and federal agencies and formulated a process to combine those data in a synergetic way. Furthermore, we tested how earth observation and weather data could help to derive more robust disaster event information. Our demonstrator focuses on two Austrian federal provinces, three hazard types—floods, storms and mass movements—and the period between 2005 and 2018. By analyzing over 140.000 single event descriptions, we conclude that—despite some limitations in retrospective data harmonization—the implementation of a curated event-based national loss and damage database is feasible and adds significant value compared to the usage of single national datasets or existing international databases such as EM-DAT or the Risk Data Hub. With our demonstrator, we are able to support the national risk assessment, the national Sendai Monitoring and federal disaster risk management with the provision of best possible harmonized loss and damage information, tailored indicators and statistics as well as hazard impact maps on the municipality scale.

This paper focuses on the study of the Vögelsberg landslide located in the municipality of Wattens (Tyrol, Austria), which reactivated in 2016, causing damages to nearby buildings and infrastructures. Since the date of reactivation, a modern monitoring system has been implemented with the installation of in-situ geodetic automated tracking total stations (ATTS), an inclinometer and two piezometers. Here, we describe two distinctive methods, the Breaks for Additive Seasonal and Trend (BFAST) and the Vector Inclination Method (VIM) used to characterize the landslide from the kinematic and geometrical point of view. The main input data, used for both methods, derive from processing a stack of several Sentinel-1 differential interferograms with the Multiple Small Baseline Subset (MSBAS) 2D and 3D algorithms. BFAST allowed highlighting the seasonality of the phenomenon from the analysis of the time series as well as the trend and the breakpoints that identify the landslide reactivation phases. These latter were then correlated with the main triggering factors such as rain and snow melting. The application of the VIM through the exploitation of the MSBAS displacement vectors allowed the reconstruction of the depth of the landslide slip surface along both the longitudinal and transversal direction and, in turn, the evaluation of the volumes of material mobilized by the landslide. The results obtained further prove that procedures for the in-depth analysis of Multi-Temporal Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (MT-InSAR) data can contribute to slow-moving landslide characterization, which represents a fundamental step for landslide hazard assessment within quantitative risk analyses.

Landslide dams are counted as one of the most destructive mountain hazards. They pose flood hazards downstream and damming effects upstream. Assessing their stability requires either a detailed case study or relying on geomorphic indices. A case-study project, while being accurate, is time-consuming and cannot be implemented during emergencies. Therefore, geomorphic indices which are calibrated based on the landslide dam inventories facilitate the stability assessment of these dams.Landslide dam inventories generally include qualitative and quantitative parameters of geographical location, landslide, dam, lake, and upstream catchment. In the current research, a comparison is made on the applicability of the existing geomorphic indices on a developed data inventory of Western Austria, Bavaria, and Northern Italy. The comparison indicates that the geometrical parameters can solely or in combination with each other stand as resisting and driving forces and that the stability assessment based on these parameters is reliable. According to the results, the volume and height of the dam are the most representative parameters of the dam's stability. However, the catchment characteristics such as area, slope, and ruggedness act as the determining destructive force. To evaluate the reliability of the methods used in the calculation or estimation of the geometric parameters, a statistical assessment is conducted based on the data from other published inventories. A wide range of variations in the mean value of the landslide and dam volume indicates the results' dependency on the study areas' geomorphological characteristics. On the other hand, the dam height of the current dataset, the datasets of Japan, New Zealand, and a worldwide database varies in only a 15 m range indicating a close estimation in different geographical regions. This emphasizes the necessity of the existence of a determining procedure for the estimation of such representative parameters in the landslide dam inventories.