Avalanches: national expenditure on prevention

Abstract

Avalanches are on a long term basis the natural phenomenon that takes the highest toll in terms of human life in the Alpine countries and France is no exception. A significant prevention program was set up after the Val-d'Isère accident in 1970, involving the creation of research and coordination bodies, the allotment of new funds for avalanche mapping and forecasting. It is all the more surprising that never was any attempt made to assess what these measures cost to France as a territory, i.e. to the tax payer and also to the customer (who can be a foreign citizen). When investigating such a new domain, it is necessary to have limited ambitions. This means one can only hope to get at magnitudes of global costs. One the other hand, some simplification arise from the fact it is not necessary to make detailed calculations, especially whenever the activity that is considered seems not to involve big expenses. The most important is to first carry out an inventory of all activities that imply some expenses and of all actors who are taking part in these activities, at least those actors who produce statistical and economical data. Whenever an activity is deemed as central in terms of cost and no statistical source exist, a specific survey has to be set up. Working along these guidelines, the main activities were identified as.