Integrating natural and human-induced hazards for transport infrastructure along the cross-border Brenner corridor

Disruptions to transportation infrastructure can isolate markets, reduce job opportunities, and hinder access to social services, leading to significant impacts that extend beyond the immediate loss of life and physical damage. The Brenner corridor is a key transalpine route for travel, commuting, and freight, operating as a central axis within the north-south European transport system. In particular, the cross-border Brenner pass, connecting Italy and Austria, is the most important on a European scale, handling a substantial daily traffic volume, with an average of 6,540 freight and 26,481 passenger vehicles in 2023. Despite its importance, this corridor is highly vulnerable to various natural hazards, particularly gravity-induced processes. This study presents a multi-hazard framework for transport infrastructure, designed to address challenges arising from natural hazards and major human-induced events that together can disrupt traffic flow along the Brenner corridor. Natural hazards, including shallow slides, debris flows and rockfalls, are addressed by two different modeling system: the Fast-Shallow Landslide Assessment Model (FSLAM) and the lumped mass rockfall propagation model (RockGIS). While, human-induced events, encompassing road accidents and maintenance activities, are analyzed using historical data provided by local stakeholders. Preliminary results reveal the complex interrelation between multiple hazards, emphasizing how individual events may occur either simultaneously (compound) or consecutively (cascading), causing cumulative effects across time and space along the transportation network. This study highlights the importance of understanding the spatial and temporal interconnections between different events, and aims to provide a dynamic multi-hazard susceptibility map for developing adaptive and resilient transport systems in hazard-prone regions.