Large water waves in reservoirs, lakes, bays and oceans may be generated by landslides, shore instabilities, snow avalanches, glacier and rock falls. For Alpine lakes impulse waves are particularly significant, due to steep shores, narrow reservoir geometries, possible large slide masses and high impact velocities. The resulting impulse waves can cause disaster due to run-up along the shoreline and overtopping of dams. The complexity of the phenomena posed formidable challenges to physical model experiments that encompassed laboratory set-up, measurement techniques and data analysis. The verified scaling law was based on the generalized Froude similitude. The granular rockslide impact experiments were conducted in a rectangular prismatic water wave channel. The slide impact characteristics were controlled by means of a novel pneumatic landslide generator, which allowed exact reproduction and independent variation of single dynamic slide parameters within a broad spectrum. The following four relevant parameters governing the wave generation were analyzed: granular slide mass, slide impact velocity, stillwater depth and slide thickness. The slope angle α= 45, the slide granulate density ρg= 2.64 and the grain diameter were not altered. State-of-the-art laser measurement techniques such as digital particle image velocimetry (PIV) and laser distance sensors (LDS) were applied to the decisive initial phase. The wave generation was characterized by an extremely unsteady three phase flow consisting of the slide granulate, water and air entrained into the flow. PIV provided instantaneous velocity vector fields in a large area of interest and gave insight into the kinematics of the wave generation process. Differential estimates such as vorticity, divergence, elongational and shear strain were extracted from the velocity vector fields. The fundamental assumption of irrotational flow in the Laplace equation was confirmed experimentally. At high impact velocities flow separation occurred on the slide shoulder resulting in a hydrodynamic impact crater, whereas at low impact velocities no flow detachment was observed. The hydrodynamic impact craters may be distinguished into outward and backward collapsing impact craters. The maximum crater volume, which corresponds to the water displacement volume, exceeded the landslide volume by up to an order of magnitude. The water displacement caused by the landslide generated the first wave crest and the collapse of the air cavity followed by a run-up along the slide ramp issued the second wave crest. The extracted water displacement curves may replace the complex wave generation process in numerical models. The recorded wave profiles were extremely unsteady and non-linear. Four wave types were determined: weakly non-linear oscillatory wave, non-linear transition wave, solitary-like wave and dissipative transient bore. Most of the generated impulse waves were located in the intermediate water depth wave regime. Nevertheless the propagation velocity of the leading wave crest closely followed the theoretical approximations for a solitary wave. Between 5 and 50% of the kinetic slide impact energy propagated outward in the impulse wave train. The main wave characteristics were related to the landslide parameters driving the tm 3⁄