EGU21-6253, updated on 10 Jan 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-6253
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Geomorphological impact of storm Alex in the Maritime Alps, France: what can we learn from seismological observations?

Małgorzata Chmiel1,2, Maxime Godano1, Marco Piantini3, Diane Rivet1, Jean-Paul Ampuero1, Florent Gimbert3, Maarten Bakker3,4, Françoise Courboulex1, Anthony Sladen1, David Ambrois1, and Pierre Brigode1
Małgorzata Chmiel et al.
  • 1Géoazur, Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, IRD, Sophia Antipolis, France
  • 2ETH Zürich, Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, Switzerland (chmielm@ee.ethz.ch)
  • 3Institute for Geosciences and Environmental Research (IGE), CNRS / INSU, IRD, University Grenoble Alpes and Grenoble-INP, Grenoble, France
  • 4INRAE, ETNA, University Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France

On 2-3 October 2020, the Maritime Alps were struck by storm Alex, a violent meteorological event that triggered heavy rainfall in southeast France, more generally referred to as a "Mediterranean Episode". The Mediterranean episode generated cumulative 24-hour rainfall rate locally exceeding yearly averages (>500 mm per 24 hours). The torrential rains triggered hazardous sediment-transporting floods of an intensity never documented in the area causing several casualties, and large infrastructure and economic damage. 

Rain and stream gauges’ measurements during the episode are incomplete and highly uncertain due to threshold saturation and destruction of measuring devices, and changes in the stream bed. However, 11 regional seismological stations of the French permanent network recorded continuous ground shaking during and after the episode. Significant ground unrest was generated by the geomorphological phenomena providing additional information on their temporal and spatial dynamics.

Here, we present results of the combined efforts in environmental and crustal seismology to better understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of the sediment-transporting floods and hydrological forcing on the solid Earth during and after the episode. For that, we first analyze seismic power, peak frequency, and dominant noise directions of seismic signals generated by sediment-transporting floods to infer bedload transport dynamics. Moreover, by using template matching we detect 93 small earthquakes that were triggered during the Alex episode exactly in the area where rainfall was maximum. This exceptional seismic swarm is possibly triggered by overpressure due to the water load in karsts, or changes in pore fluid pressure. Our results illustrate that seismological observations allow for better understanding and quantifying of the geomorphological impact of extreme weather phenomena in mountainous settings and the related hydro-geomorphological hazards.

How to cite: Chmiel, M., Godano, M., Piantini, M., Rivet, D., Ampuero, J.-P., Gimbert, F., Bakker, M., Courboulex, F., Sladen, A., Ambrois, D., and Brigode, P.: Geomorphological impact of storm Alex in the Maritime Alps, France: what can we learn from seismological observations?, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-6253, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-6253, 2021.

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