Jökull - 01.01.2001, Page 83

Accidents and economic damage due to snow avalanches and landslides in Iceland

Figure 2. Locations where avalanches have been reported to cause damage or deaths since the settlement of
Iceland in the ninth century (based on Figure 6 in Björnsson (1980)). A total of 225 locations are shown. Many
accidents may be expected to be missing from the map because the records are not complete and the descrip-
tions of many reported accidents in earliest centuries are not detailed enough to allow plotting their locations.
– Staðir þar sem orðið hafa slys eða tjón af völdum snjóflóða síðan land byggðist á níundu öld (byggt á mynd
6 í Björnsson (1980)). Samtals 225 staðir eru sýndir. Gera má ráð fyrir að marga staði vanti á myndina vegna
þess að göt eru í heimildum og einnig vegna þess að lýsingar á mörgum slysa fyrr á öldum eru ekki nægilega
nákvæmar til þess að teikna megi þau á kort.
tions all over the country. Clearly the avalanche prob-
lem is relevant to most populated areas of Iceland, al-
though the problem is by far most serious in the west-
ern, northern and eastern parts of the country. This
point is illustrated by Figure 3, which shows the same
data as Figure 2, but without a map of Iceland as a
background. Interestingly, the outline of the country
is easily recognizable from the locations of reported
avalanche accidents alone.
Topographic conditions
Almost all the inhabited areas where avalanches pose
a threat to the local population are located close to the
coast in western, northern and eastern Iceland (Fig-
ure 1). The mountain slopes above the hazard ar-
eas usually rise to between 400 and 700 m above sea
level. The mountain tops are often flat and formed as
large plateaux, especially in the Vestfirðir region (the
Northwest peninsula). Mountains in the Austfirðir re-
gion (the Eastern fjords) are more often formed as nar-
row ridges with Alpine characteristics. The plateaux
are important as catchment areas for snow drift which
can transport large amounts of drifting snow to the
starting zones of avalanches under unfavourable cir-
cumstances during storms.
Forests are almost non-existent in Iceland. Natu-
ral avalanche protection, which is in many countries
provided by dense forests covering steep slopes, is
therefore not relevant in Iceland. Absence of forests,
furthermore, means that information about the age or
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