News
Weekly webinars in May 2022
Geoprevent offers weekly live webinars on topics related to electronic monitoring of natural hazards in May 2022. We record the webinars and offer them for replay using the links below.Webinar 1 (Tuesday, May 3, 2022, at 5 PM CET, 9 AM MDT, 8 AM PDT): Electronic...
Pollfjellet: New AVYX avalanche radar system installed in Norway
Our newest avalanche radar system was installed in the village of Furuflaten in the north of Norway in February 2021. The AVYX avalanche radar monitors the southern slope of Mount Pollfjellet, which is around 50 km as the crow flies from Tromsø. The street located on...
SLYX Slow Movement Analysis: Algorithm for slow movement measurement on tailing dams
Geopraevent developed SLYX Slow Movement Analysis tailored for mining applications: the algorithm is integrated into IDS GeoRadar's IBIS Guardian software and detects slow movements on tailing dams. SLYX Slow Movement Analysis offers a solution where conventional...
Avalanche radars Bear Pass: more than 1100 avalanches detected in first winter 2019/20
The automatic avalanche detection system at Bear Pass, Canada, consists of three stations: the two radar stations, George Copper and Little Bears, and the relay station Mt Johnson for independent, redundant data transmission. The first winter of operation was...
Upcoming online Events with Geoprevent
Join us at two online events in October 2020: First, we will give a presentation at the VSSW (Virtual Snow Science Workshop), the largest international snow and avalanche conference, and, in mid October, we will hold a webinar with our partner Geobrugg on construction...
Kandersteg: Geoprevent monitors Spitze Stei with radar and deformation camera
The rock slope named "bim spitze Stei" above world-famous Lake Oeschinen in the Swiss Alps has always seen movement (Office for Forests and Natural Hazards of the Canton of Berne). Heavy precipitation often increases slope movement and in recent years the slope has...
Technology guide: Monitoring of natural hazards
The GEOPREVENT technology guide is available online now. The guide includes more than 40 pages and illustrates the setup of a monitoring system. It explains the state-of-the-art technology applied for warning and alarm systems and contains the following topics;...
Innovative and worldwide unique rockfall alarm system monitors Axenstrasse
Since September 2019, a tailor-made rockfall alarm system from GEOPREVENT has been monitoring the "Gumpisch" section of Axenstrasse and automatically closes the road in the event of an incident. The Gumpisch valley is a gully between Sisikon and Flüelen in Central...
Geoprevent now part of Hexagon
Seven years ago, Lorenz Meier and Geotest AG founded Geoprevent with a mission to use modern technologies in operational projects for natural hazard monitoring. Geoprevent has grown continuously since then. Currently, we employ a team of 20 people and operate over 100...
Avalanche radar system installed at Bear Pass, Canada
Our crew successfully completed installing the avalanche radar system at Bear Pass, Canada, for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MoTI). Despite challenging weather conditions, the installation team was able to setup and take into operation the four...
Partnership Geoprevent – Geobrugg
The Swiss companies Geobrugg and Geoprevent proudly announce their strategic partnership. Geobrugg's high-tensile steel wire protection solutions and Geoprevent's alarm and monitoring systems are ideally matched in the field of natural hazards such as rockfall,...
Plaine Morte: Overall monitoring system for glacial lake, drainage channel and runoff
This year, we extended our glacier lake monitoring system on the Plaine Morte with four autonomous camera stations and an additional pressure probe. The rapid discharge of Lake Faverges in Juli 2018 led to severe floods in the valley floor and damaged several...
Image analysis identifies Trift glacier collapse early
On Tuesday night, 2 July 2019, a large, unstable section in the northern slope of Trift Glacier at Weissmies, Switzerland, broke off. Several days before, the image analysis of our deformation camera showed a significant acceleration of the affected area and indicated...
The world’s largest avalanche detection system is being built in Canada
The world's largest detection system for avalanches is being built at the Rogers Pass in Canada to improve the winter safety of the Trans-Canada Highway (media releases by Government of Canada, CBC, Revelstoke Mountaineer). Among the detection devices are four...
Geoprevent in Brazil
In cooperation with Geobrugg, our CEO Lorenz Meier and Head of Customer Solutions Gian Darms visited Brazil last week. They gave presentations on automated natural hazard monitoring systems for several mining companies in the Minera Gerais region. The Swiss delegation...
Alarm on the mountain – article in science magazine
The German science magazine Bild der Wissenschaft has published a comprehensive article on our monitoring system of Bis glacier at the Swiss village Randa. The article also describes the technologies applied to monitor the glacier and to detect ice and snow avalanches...
Belalp: Avalanche radar monitors ridge avalanche
On 22 February 1999 at 5 PM a gigantic powder avalanche descended near Blatten, Switzerland. The width of the so-called "ridge avalanche" was 3.5 km with a slab thickness of 3 to 8 m (P. Schwitter & L. Stoffel, ISSW 2009 in German). The avalanche destroyed or...
Avalanche detection with automatic closure and reopening of road and rail
In natural hazards, the implementation of alarm systems with automatic road or rail closures requires the consideration of a number of important aspects. The aim is to keep closing times of transport routes as short as possible while at the same time ensuring safety...
Many avalanches for our radars in the Alps, Scandinavia and Canada
Winter is only halfway through and our avalanche radars in the northern hemisphere have already detected over 400 avalanches! The heavy snowfalls in the first half of January caused many spontaneous and artificially triggered avalanches in the Alps. But also in...
Weisshorn hanging glacier: Monitoring at 4133 m a.s.l.
The hanging glacier on the north-eastern face of famous Weisshorn (4506 m a.s.l.) of Switzerland is now permanently monitored by our deformation camera. We installed the 42 megapixel camera with HDR option at the end of October 2018. The camera photographs the glacier...
Geopraevent at the largest snow and avalanche conference worldwide
The 22nd ISSW (International Snow Science Workshop) took place in Innsbruck from 7 to 12 October 2018. The world's largest conference in the field of snow and avalanches brings together practitioners and researchers from all over the world every two years. As a main...
Bondo monitoring one year after the large rock avalanche
After the big rock avalanche at Pizzo Cengalo on August 23, 2017 and several subsequent, powerful debris flows, we expanded natural hazard monitoring in Bondo on behalf of the forestry and natural hazards office, canton Grisons. Since September 2017 (see news entry)...
Glacial lake Plaine Morte: Early flood warning
The glacial lake Faverge on Plaine Morte glacier in the Swiss Alps drained again. On 27 July 2018, 12 PM, our monitoring system detected a drop in the lake level, which had continuously risen to 17 m over the previous two months. The critical level difference was...
Avalanche radar Zermatt: 244 avalanches detected during winter 2017/18
The third winter of avalanche radar operation for avalanche detection in Zermatt was an extraordinary one with record-breaking snowfalls and extreme avalanche situations. The two avalanche radars counted a total of 244 avalanches in the Lüegetli and Schusslobina...
GEOSummit Switzerland 2018
GEOSummit 2018 took place in Berne from 5 - 7 June 2018 according to the motto "the digital living space". The congress brings together experts from geomatics and geoinformation and considers different groups in the field of geoinformation, technology and innovation...