Together with his team, D-BAUG Professor Fabian Walter has developed an innovative alarm system that can provide early warning of debris flows at Illgraben in Valais. For this, the scientists used seismic sensors and machine learning. The new AI detector increases the warning time by at least 20 minutes compared with existing systems. The study is the first milestone in a research collaboration conducted by WSL and Swisscom Broadcast in the early detection of natural hazards in Alpine regions.
Find ETH News article by Michael Keller
Original publication:
Chmiel M, Walter F, Wenner M, Zhang Z, McArdell BW, Hibert C: Machine Learning Improves Debris Flow Warning. Geophysical Research Letters (2021), doi: 10.1029/2020GL090874
Learn more about the research group Glacier Seismology led by Prof. Fabian Walter
