LWD-Infosystem Tirol — visual information about the current avalanche situation via mobile devices

Abstract

The Avalanche Warning Center Tyrol (Innsbruck, Austria) together with the Department of Geography and Regional Research at the University of Vienna have developed a complex and very powerful database driven online decision support system for visualization and analysis of current avalanche relevant factors in the Tyrolean Alps. In order to understand the avalanche situation it is important to have spatial coverage of meteorological and snow pack factors as well as information covering the avalanche danger scale and topographic situation. All information can be interactively made accessible to the user and includes for example current snow depth, amount of snow accumulation within the last 24 hours, temperature, wind speed and direction as well as the regional distribution of the avalanche danger scale including height and temporal dependencies. Spatial depiction of this information can help comprehend the situation. The faster this information is made accessible the more useful it can be. For this reason the partners of the project decided to adapt the online maps for the presentation on mobile devices like mobile phone and personal digital assistant (PDA).

In December 2004 the first images were presented on mobile devices. The main problem was to provide the same information included in the Internet maps on a significant smaller display. The results are simplified depictions of the current snow depth, amount of snow accumulation and the predicted avalanche danger scale for small screens in two different sizes. This contribution will give an overview of the application, focusing on its latest developments as well as planned extensions.