| Abstract: | The estimation of debris‐?ow magnitude is an essential step in the assessment of debris‐?ow hazard. Although different methods have been developed for the assessment of debris‐?ow magnitude, this is still a dif?cult task because of the complexity of ?ow processes and the lack of data to test estimation procedures in many mountainous regions. Data on debris‐?ow magnitude from 127 basins in the Eastern Italian Alps have been collected from scienti?c and technical journals, technical reports, historical documents gathered from local archives, and ?eld surveys. These data were used to develop and test different predictive approaches, encompassing regression equations, geomorphological surveys and probabilistic analysis of time series. Regression techniques were used to correlate debris‐?ow magnitude to morphometric parameters and geological characteristics of the basins. Values of the channel debris yield rate (contribution per unit length of channel), proposed in the literature, were compared with data from the study area for identifying reference values for channel stretches of different morphological characteristics. Although limited to the few basins in which suf?cient data were available, the probabilistic analysis of time series of debris‐?ow magnitude provides indications about the relations between magnitude and frequency of debris ?ows. Some observations about the capability and drawbacks of considered methods are presented and the combined use of different approaches for the estimation of debris‐?ow magnitude is suggested. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
