ABSTRACT
The work presented here is part of the sediment cascades in alpine geosystems project (SEDAG), within which a research team from five universities is studying alpine sediment transfer by various geomorphic processes. It is intended to obtain more detailed information about the sediment budget and landscape evolution of two catchment areas in the Northern Limestone Alps, Germany (Lahnenwiesgraben, Ammergebirge mountains and Reintal, Wetterstein mountains). Therefore, the spatial interaction of hill slope and channel processes — including soil erosion, rockfall, debris flows on slopes and in channels, shallow landslides and full-depth avalanches — is studied (see Heckmann et al., 2002; Keller and Moser, 2002; Schrott et al., 2002; Unbenannt, 2002). It is attempted to develop new spatially distributed modeling approaches to describe the sediment cascade. The modeling task is to identify starting zones of the processes (disposition modeling; e.g., Becht and Rieger, 1997) and to determine which areas would be affected (process modeling; e.g., Wichmann et al., 2002; Wichmann and Becht, 2004a,b). It is intended to explore and illustrate the potential effects of land management strategies and climate change on landscape evolution (see Schmidt, Chapter 13, this volume, for an analysis of the effects of climate change on landslides). Because of the detailed modeling of process path, run-out distance and erosion and deposition areas, the models can also be applied to natural hazard assessment.
