End User Interpretation of the Avalanche Danger Scale: A Scottish Study

Abstract

In this study, we investigate Scottish end users' understanding and interpretation of the five point European Avalanche Danger Scale. Our main findings are, first, that many end users report to draw on detailed avalanche information including the avalanche problem information in their planning. Second, only seven in ten end users are aware that there are five danger levels. Third, end users' risk perception of the danger scale, which we elicited using numerical probability judgements about each danger level, increases mostly linearly-results that cohere well with recent findings by Morgan et al. (2023) who used a different response format and a North American user group. Lastly, we report the results of an exploratory analysis whether individual characteristics of end users (such as their outdoor sport experience, age, gender, avalanche education), predict the individuals' interpretation of the danger level. We find these characteristics have little explanatory power, which suggests that avalanche education needs to take a broad and inclusive approach to improve the intended understanding of the avalanche danger scale. We finish our discussion by contextualising the main findings.