The transportation system in Alpine countries plays a vital role in the European transit of passengers and freights from north to south and east to west. In addition, transportation lines are essential for the accessibility of lateral valleys and their economic welfare. In mountain areas, extreme weather events regularly trigger hazardous and torrential processes like different kinds of flooding, landslides or avalanches and their intermixtures. Their intensity will increase in the next years due to climate change. As railway infrastructure has a bottleneck function in the Alps, this case study will focus on enhancing resilience of a transportation network in a multi-hazard context and on reducing adverse effects of natural hazards in the transportation infrastructure in Austria.

natural hazards; resilient railway infrastructure; flood damage railway model