Jökull - 01.01.2001, Qupperneq 92

Tómas Jóhannesson and Þorsteinn Arnalds
cial buildings. The three hazard zones are defined in
terms of the “local risk” according to Table 6.
Table 6. Hazard zones of the Icelandic regulations
issued in 2000. – Hættusvæði samkvæmt reglugerð
um ofanflóðahættumat frá árinu 2000.
Hazard Lower limit of risk Upper limit of risk
zone (
per year) (
per year)
A 0.3 1.0
B 1.0 3.0
C 3.0 —
New settlements can only be planned outside haz-
ard zones according to the new regulation. The regu-
lation specifies the following restriction on the use of
hazard zones in already existing settlements.
A New residential houses and commercial build-
ings can be built in hazard zones “A” in exist-
ing settlements, but schools, hospitals, apart-
ment buildings and similar buildings must be
reinforced to withstand the impact of a design
avalanche in these areas.
B Residential buildings must also be reinforced in
hazard zones “B”, but not common commercial
buildings. New schools, hospitals, etc. are not
allowed.
C No new buildings where people are expected to
stay on a permanent basis are allowed in hazard
zones “C”, neither residential nor commercial
buildings. Changes and maintenance of exist-
ing buildings is allowed in these areas, but sub-
ject to the restriction that the safety of people
should be improved by the changes.
The regulations require that local governments
aim to fully eliminate the use of hazard zones “C”
for residential buildings by the year 2010 by the con-
struction of protection measures and/or purchasing of
buildings in hazard zones in cases where the construc-
tion of defence structures is not practical or economi-
cal. A plan has been made to construct avalanche pro-
tection measures for hazard areas and/or to purchase
endangered property to reach this goal. The support
of the Icelandic Avalanche Fund is also available to
local authorities for the construction of avalanche pro-
tection measures for zones “B” and “A”.
The approach to use individual risk as a criteria
for hazard zoning is quite different from the tradi-
tional practice in other countries in Europe, such as
Norway and the Alpine countries, where the great-
est experience in avalanche hazard zoning has accu-
mulated. Therefore a comparison was made between
Icelandic and Norwegian and Austrian hazard zoning
methods (Arnalds, 2001). Three separate groups of
experts delineated hazard zones in Seyðisfjörður, east-
ern Iceland, based on Icelandic, Norwegian and Aus-
trian regulations and methods. The results indicate
that the Icelandic regulations are somewhat stricter
than the Norwegian and Austrian regulations. The
safety level imposed by the Icelandic regulations may
be about three time higher than for the other two coun-
tries.
After the regulations on hazard zoning were fi-
nalised a hazard map has been proposed for the com-
munity of Neskaupstaður (Arnalds et al., 2001a; Hæt-
tumatsnefnd Fjarðabyggðar, 2001). The technical
work related to the hazard zoning for Neskaupstaður
was done parallel to hazard zoning for Ísafjörður and
Siglufjörður (Arnalds et al., 2001b). The regulations
specify that in addition to the four abovementioned
towns hazard zoning should be completed before the
end of 2001 for the towns Ólafsvík, Patreksfjörður,
Bíldudalur, Bolungarvík and Eskifjörður (Figure 1).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Ásgeir Ásgeirsson at Viðlagatrygging Íslands and
Freyr Jóhannesson at Almenna Verkfræðistofan com-
piled information about insurance payments due to
avalanche accidents in Iceland since 1974. Leah
Tracy made Figures 1, 2 and 3. We thank Magnús
Már Magnússon and Halldór G. Pétursson for useful
comments on the text.
92 JÖKULL No. 50