H a z a r d

M a n a g e m e n t

a n d

P u b l i c

Wa r n i n g

Toaddressthisproblem,representativesofmuchof
Western Europe met to resolve these differences and agree
upon a standard.A new "International" standard, the so-
called "Unified Risk Scale" resulted and is shown below
(Table 2)inaslightlymodifiedform(1995).Thisform
resulted aftercolumns describing "Effects on Traffic and
residential areas/ recommendations" and "Effects on off-
piste andback-country activities / recommendations"were
effectively dropped (at least in some countries) due to lack
of general agreement on their usage.

THE CURRENTSTATEOF U.S.

AVALANCHE INFORMATION

Withthe CanadianAvalancheAssociation (CAA) planning
to adopt the new 5-level risk scale in the 1994/95 winter,
there was increasing pressure on the American avalanche
community(AAAP)toatleastconsiderifnotadopt the
new "international" standard.At the 1994 ISSW, a well-
attendedand spiritedmeeting was held to discuss the pros
andconsofthe5-levelscale,withrepresentativesfrom
Canada discussing theirversion ofthe unified riskscale
which was planned forimplementation that winter.Dur-
ing this meeting, it was agreed by US representatives that
theUSshouldnotconsiderchange onlybecauseothers
did.Ratherthe US viewpoint was to embrace the change
onlyif it made sense in operational forecasting programs,

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