During the last two decades, three major flooding events (1987, 1993, 2000) caused considerable damage in large parts of the Swiss Alps, including the Valais and Ticino regions. Coincident with the 1987 and 1993 flooding, significant periglacial debris-flow activity occurred, whereas no such debris flows occurred in 2000. The presented study aims to put these events and the apparent increase in event frequency into a larger context by comparing reconstructed debris-flow data from the Ritigraben torrent (1605-2002) with flooding events in neighboring catchment areas. The distribution of past damaged sites is compared to those of recent events. Furthermore, the timing of selected debris flow events within the season is analyzed.