Natural Risks database

The events that have caused damage - both past and present - are collected to have a database of natural hazards in Andorra as complete as possible. This task is useful for verifying and validating previous work on natural hazards, for innovating in the design of protection measures, and for executing alert and action plans in the face of extreme episodes. The sources of information used to feed this database are the Andorran press, the archives of the Cos de Bombers d’Andorra and the Cos de Policia d'Andorra. The natural hazards covered in this database are meteorological, fires, landslides and rockfalls, floods, avalanches, and earthquakes. Data are available from 1935 to 2010.

On the other hand, and in parallel, we are in the process of generating georeferenced thematic databases.

Work is currently underway on the georeferenced avalanche database, including mapping all avalanche episodes collected from the 2008-2009 season to the present. The objectives are, on the one hand, to nourish and update the Cadastre d’Allaus d’Andorra; on the other hand, to have spatial data to be able to study its dynamics. In this sense, in 2020 an article was published on the 1996 Arinsal avalanche [1].

[1] G. Furdada, A. Margalef, L. Trapero, M. Pons, F. Areny, M. Baró, A. Reyes, M. Guinau  “The Avalanche of Les Fonts d'Arinsal (Andorra): An Example of a Pure Powder, Dry Snow Avalanche”, 2020