Research

Our research focusses on mountain areas, specifically high-altitude, steep topography in the mountain cryosphere as well as associated natural hazards. A main tool of our research in this space are in-situ (wireless) sensor systems. The core of our activity happens at the outdoor laboratory on the slopes of the Matterhorn (CH), where for decades we have been monitoring the permafrost state covering transects from the valley bottom to the summit and from North to the South face. Our data products, from borehole temperatures to GNSS positions, are integrated in the Swiss Permafrost Monitoring Network (PERMOS) and in the "KryoMon.AT – Cryosphere Monitoring Austria". A strong focus has been to develop and implement a data center for data management and processing, such as the PermaSense data portal. In addition we also are working on a large scale effort to aggregate mass movement monitoring across the Alps combining different methodologies from seismic detections to field observations (OSCAR).