AvaFrame is a cooperation between the Austrian Avalanche and Torrent Service (Wildbach- und Lawinenverbauung; WLV) and the Austrian Research Centre for Forests (Bundesforschungszentrum für Wald; BFW) within the Federal Ministry Republic of Austria: Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management (BML).
Phase I
Our mission was to
Develop an open source framework (licensed with the European Union Public license (EUPL)) for avalanche simulations which replicates and simplifies current simulation procedures and models at the WLV and make them accessible to the public domain.
Our aims were to make AvaFrame:
- applicable in an operational setting e.g. for hazard mapping or planning of mitigation measures within the WLV and civil engineering.
- extensible for scientific applications to be used to develop new methods, models and cover a wide range of scientific topics.
- easily usable and extendable by (inter-)national partners, academia and interested users.
Phase I in Numbers
Phase I’s primary goal was to collect, consolidate, homogenise and document current knowledge on avalanche simulations at WLV and BFW. Selected metrics:
- 6 people with direct code contributions, 10 with documented contributions to issues and suggestions (GitHub).
- 8,500 individual code contributions (commits); approx. 250,000 lines of code; 315 issues, 250 resolved.
- 7 QGIS connector versions, with approx. 350–500 downloads per version.
- 22 AvaFrame releases, with approx. 40 individual downloads (clones on GitHub) per month.
- 8 real test cases, 13 generic test cases.
- 3 WLV-BFW workshops, 1 public workshop, 3 international introductions (Japan, Italy, Norway),
- 6 Steering Meetings, 5 Scientific Meetings.
- 6 master’s theses, 2 contributions to the WLV journal, 13 conference contributions, 1 focus session (IMC 2022), 1 paper submitted, 28 monthly updates on the AvaFrame homepage.
More information on the timeline of code contributions, number of issues and similar metrics is available on OSSInsight and at www.opennhm.org .
Phase II
Phase II builds seamlessly on the work from Phase I, extending it to address deeper and additional topics, expanding existing model comparisons and improving quality management of model results. Our mission for Phase II is to
Extend the open-source framework AvaFrame for avalanche simulations with significant operational and scientific topics that are important for current and future operational work in the core service areas of the WLV.
The core goals of Phase II are:
- Maintainer and software engineer: maintenance and development of the open framework, covering bugs, usability, interfaces and cooperation decisions.
- Long-term user support for ongoing operational use, particularly in hazard zone planning.
- Continuation of training, seminars and webinars, documentation and interfaces for the professional community.
- Integration of new scientific developments into operational use via research collaborations and academic theses.
- Open-source framework as an interface for the international scientific community.
- Pilot studies on adaptation to other gravitational mass movements (e.g. debris flows / DebrisFrame).
Operational Topics
These topics target current needs directly relevant to operational applications:
- Maintainer, software engineer and long-term user support: operational usability, QGIS interfaces and hazard zone planning support.
- Powder snow avalanches (PSA): depth-averaged approach.
- Forest interaction: continuation of ForestFrame; implementation and comparison of forest–avalanche interaction models across com1DFA, com2AB and com4FlowPy.
- Quality management: automated parameter optimisation, extended reference avalanche catalogues, standard test cases and geodatabase interfaces.
Scientific Topics
These topics address areas not yet mature enough for operational use, approached primarily through national and international cooperations:
- Extended powder snow avalanches: further PSA approaches.
- Entrainment and deposition: investigation and improvement of current processes in com1DFA, WSA and GlideSnow.
- Dams and impact forces: comparison against high-resolution models (LES); evaluation of WallLine integration or external model interfaces.
- Qualitative and quantitative model analyses: model comparison.
AvaFrame is part of a BML initiative to foster technological innovation within a strategic focus on the area of Austrian safety policies, digital innovations and climate mitigation strategies.
Information in German can be found on the BML Homepage.