We received a total of 3555 filled out questionnaires within two weeks. In general, those who took part in the survey were quite satisfied with the Euregio Avalanche Bulletin and viewed the change as positive. An additional query about avalanche-specific knowledge revealed that survey participants who are active in outlying terrain are very well informed about the given avalanche situation. The Euregio Avalanche Bulletin is very important to most of them when planning a variety of winter activities, e.g. snowshoe hiking, freeriding, backcountry skiing tours and ice climbing. That includes persons aged 14 to 81 from all three regions.
Nevertheless, those who took part in the survey are not a representative cross-section of all those who actively engage in winter sports in outlying terrain away from secured and marked ski runs. Most survey respondents were from Tirol, speak German, are backcountry skiers, male, on average 41 years old, very active, and have a relatively high level of education.
PRIZE GAME
The winners of the prize game were drawn and have been notified via e-mail. We extend warm congratulations to all of them!
RESULTS IN DETAIL
The questionnaire was sub-divided into several sections. They included questions about the quality of the Euregio Avalanche Bulletins and about the education levels of the participants.
Old-style Avalanche Bulletins/Forecasts vs. Euregio Avalanche Bulletins
In winter 2018/2019 the old-style Avalanche Bulletins and Forecasts of the Avalanche Warning Services of Tirol, South Tirol and Trentino were bundled together and completely re-designed. So of course, we want to know whether these changes are being viewed as improvements.
More than half of the respondents were of the opinion that the Euregio Avalanche Bulletins are, in general, “somewhat better” or “a lot better” whereas 22.9% viewed the change as having brought about neither improvement nor deterioration and 8.4% were of the opinion that the new Euregio Avalanche Bulletins are worse than the old-style Avalanche Bulletins (Fig. 1). It was interesting that not just design and comprehensibility, but also contents were judged to be somewhat “better” or “a lot better” by 63.8% of the respondents, compared to the old-style Avalanche Bulletins and Forecasts.
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| Fig. 1 Percentage of survey participants (n=3555) who found the contents, comprehensibility, design and informational value of the new Euregio Avalanche Bulletin “much worse,” “worse,” “about the same,” “somewhat better” and “a lot better” than the old-style Avalanche Bulletins. |
Satisfaction with the Euregio Avalanche Bulletin
The majority of respondents assessed the Euregio Avalanche Bulletin contents in particular as “very good.” However, the visualization and the language quality of both sections, Danger Assessment and Snowpack, were judged merely as “rather good.” Only very few respondents found the bulletin to be “very bad” or “rather bad” (Fig. 2).
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| Fig. 2: Percentage of survey participants (n=3555) who rated the contents, comprehensibility, design, language quality of Danger Assessment and language quality of Snowpack Description as “very bad,” “rather bad,” “neither bad nor good,” “rather good,” and “very good.” |
Quality of the forecasts
Respondents were asked to judge the quality of the avalanche forecasts. The were of the opinion that the forecasts were correct about 85.9% of the time during the winter season.
Criticism
Lots of people initially had trouble navigating the newly designed website. These problems were resolved swiftly after a short introductory phase.
Often criticized on the new website:
- Technical problems, website downloaded too slowly, compatibility problems with mobile devices.
- Presentation of morning / afternoon situations on the avalanche danger map was often not clear in the beginning phase.
- Visualization of automated measurements was not optimal.
- General handling of snow maps and weather maps was criticized.
- Some users missed direct access to avalanche events, since they could only be called up indirectly via www.lawis.at.
PERSONAL DATA
The respondents were users of the Euregio Avalanche Bulletins. Accordingly, their answers did not supply representative responses of all users of Avalanche Warning Service products.
Age
The age spectrum of participants was huge (Fig. 3A). The oldest participant was 81 years old, the youngest was 14. The median age was 41.
Gender
Women were severely underrepresented in the survey. The overall percentage of female respondents was 16.6% (South Tirol: 17.3%; Tirol 16.6%; Trentino 9.6%). A Swiss study showed that 45% of total days spent backcountry touring are undertaken by women.
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| Fig. 3: (A) Age-distribution of survey participants, depicted in five-year steps (n=3555). Red line: median age. (B) Gender distribution of survey participants. |
Language and preferred touring region
Most of the questionnaires were filled out in German (Fig. 4A). Most of the survey participants reported that they were most frequently on tours in Tirol, i.e. North Tirol and East Tirol (Fig. 4B).
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| Fig. 4: Percentage of survey participants (n=3555) according to (A) language the survey was answered in; (B) preferred touring region of survey participants. |
Information gain for individual tour planning
Most of the survey participants reported they always (80.8%) or usually (18.11%) informed themselves about avalanche danger before they ventured into backcountry terrain.
Knowledge of Euregio Avalanche Bulletin
Most survey participants are acquainted with the individual sections of the Euregio Avalanche Bulletin “very well” or “well.” General information is better known than details. Accordingly, knowledge of the avalanche danger level was known “very well” or “rather well” to nearly all survey participants (98.5%). Description of the snowpack layering, on the other hand, was known “less well” to many of the survey participants (Fig. 5).
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| Fig. 5 Percentage of survey participants (n=3555) who know various sections of information contained in the Euregio Avalanche Bulletin “not at all,”, “only slightly,” “rather superficially,” “rather well,” and “very well.” |
The results tend to reflect the information pyramid (Fig. 6) which is used for the contents of the Euregio Avalanche Bulletin and, incidentally, which is also recommended by the European Avalanche Warning Services (EAWS). According to this structure, users first absorb the easily grasped, clearly presented information, and study the details only at the end.
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| Fig. 6: Information pyramid used by the EAWS |
Snow and avalanche education
As can be seen in Fig. 7A, about 40% of survey participants have had some formal avalanche education, e.g. mountain guides, ski instructors, etc.
Self-assessment in evaluating avalanche danger
As reflected in Fig. 7B, the majority of respondents who were asked to evaluate their own abilities described them as “medium” (53.6%) or “great” (32.2%). This evaluation is of course subjective, yet it correlates with the high percentage of survey participants who have had some avalanche-specific education.
It is likely that interested and better educated winter sports activists also use the website more often and for that reason are more likely to supply answers in a survey. In addition, such people are presumably more likely to fill out a survey questionnaire since this subject is highly interesting to them; perhaps they also see a possibility of submitting their own input.
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| Fig. 7: Percentage of survey participants who (A) have had some avalanche-specific education and who (B) evaluate their experience in assessing avalanche danger as “very little” (0.7%), “little” (8.8%), “average” ( 53.6%), “great” (32.1%) and “very great” ( 4.7%). |
Avalanche courses completed
As illustrated in Fig. 8, most of the survey participants (88%) have taken at least one avalanche course, e.g. an avalanche course sponsored by the Alpine Club, etc. However, most have taken several courses (most often 2-3). This result corroborates the fact that for the most part, well educated persons who are interested in this subject are also the ones who took part in the survey.
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| Fig. 8: Number of survey participants who have taken zero, one, two-to-three, four-to-five, 6-10, 11-20, more than 20 avalanche courses and number of survey participants who were involved in such courses as an instructor. |
Type and length of winter sports activities in outlying terrain
Survey participants consider themselves to be enormously active. Accordingly, the average number of days they were engaged in sports in outlying terrain, i.e. on backcountry skiing or freeriding tours away from secured and marked ski runs, was about 34 days.
The majority (68.4%) of days spent in outlying terrain was for backcountry skiing tours. One fifth of the days spent in outlying terrain (20.8%) was for freeriding with skis and 3.7% for freeriding with snowboard (Fig.9).
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| Fig. 9: Percentage distribution of winter sports in outlying terrain. |
Individual responsibility
92.9% of survey participants reported they undertake backcountry tours on their own responsibility. The remaining 7.1% join other experienced persons or remain on secured and marked ski runs.
(The survey results were evaluated by our apprentice Clara Bertel.)
