Determination of areas with release potential of snow avalanche in Sharr Mountains in the Republic of Kosovo

Avalanches represent a very high risk in residential areas, road infrastructure, environment, and economy, and can have fatal consequences if the human factors do not take any action. Advances in geospatial technology and access to spatial data have enabled spatial analysis to assist in decision-making regarding spatial planning in avalanche-prone locations. Determining locations with snow avalanche discharge potential is a crucial step in the avalanche zoning process.

This research deals with areas with snow avalanche potential disjunction, based mainly on topographic factors followed by meteorological ones. Topographic factors were mainly determined according to morphometric techniques, which are achieved through geographic information systems (GIS), as well as meteorological ones from statistical data and various processing of spatial and non-spatial data. Spatial analysis are also supported by geostatistical methods Fuzzy Logic and AHP, which in interaction with GIS have enabled the achievement of the purpose of this paper. The results from the spatial analysis have been verified based on comparison methods, such as the ROC method which was used during this final phase, in which the analysis has shown that the methods used in this research have given satisfactory results. As the main result, we obtained maps of areas with snow avalanche potential discharge in the study area relating to two geostatistical methods.