We tested the possibility of using digital, color aerial ortho-photographs and monoscopic, panchromatic satellite images of comparable spatial and radiometric resolution, to map recent landslides in ...Italy and to update existing measures of landslide mobilization. In a 90-km
2 area in Umbria, central Apennines, rainfall resulted in abundant landslides in the period from September 2004 to June 2005. Analysis of the rainfall record determined the approximate dates of landslide occurrence and revealed that the slope failures occurred in response to moderately wet rainfall periods. The slope failures occurred primarily in cultivated terrain and left subtle morphological and land cover signatures, making the recognition and mapping of the individual landslides problematic. Despite the difficulty with the identification of the landslides without the use of stereoscopic visualization, visual analysis of the aerial and satellite images allowed mapping 457 new landslides, ranging in area 3.0
×
10
1
<
A
L
<
2.5
×
10
4 m
2, for a total landslide area
A
LT
=
6.92
×
10
5 m
2. To identify the landslides, the investigators adopted the interpretation criteria commonly used to identify and map landslides on aerial photography. The result confirms that monoscopic, very high resolution images taken by airborne and satellite sensors can be used to prepare landslide maps even where slope failures are difficult to detect, provided the imagery has sufficient geometric and radiometric resolutions. The different dates of the aerial (March 2005) and the satellite (June–July 2005) images allowed the temporal segmentation of the landslide information, and studying the statistics of landslide area and volume for different periods. Compared to pre-existing information on the abundance and size of the landslides in the area, the inventory obtained by studying the aerial and satellite images proved more complete. The new mapping showed 145% more landslides and 85% more landslide area than a pre-existing reconnaissance inventory. As a result of the improved mapping, the rate of landslide mobilization for the 2004–2005 landslide season was determined to be
φ
L
=
27.1
mm year
−
1
, 30% higher than a previous estimate for the same period. This seasonal rate of landslide mobilization is significantly larger than the long-term regional erosion rate in the central Apennines. The accelerated rate is attributed to agricultural practices that favor slope instability.
Landslide inventory maps (LIMs) show where landslides have occurred in an area, and provide information useful to different types of landslide studies, including susceptibility and hazard modelling ...and validation, risk assessment, erosion analyses, and to evaluate relationships between landslides and geological settings. Despite recent technological advancements, visual interpretation of aerial photographs (API) remains the most common method to prepare LIMs. In this work, we present a new semi-automatic procedure that makes use of GIS technology for the digitization of landslide data obtained through API. To test the procedure, and to compare it to a consolidated landslide mapping method, we prepared two LIMs starting from the same set of landslide API data, which were digitized (a) manually adopting a consolidated visual transfer method, and (b) adopting our new semi-automatic procedure. Results indicate that the new semi-automatic procedure (a) increases the interpreter's overall efficiency by a factor of 2, (b) reduces significantly the subjectivity introduced by the visual (manual) transfer of the landslide information to the digital database, resulting in more accurate LIMs. With the new procedure, the landslide positional error decreases with increasing landslide size, following a power-law. We expect that our work will help adopt standards for transferring landslide information from the aerial photographs to a digital landslide map, contributing to the production of accurate landslide maps.
Inundations and landslides are widespread phenomena in Italy, where they cause severe damage and pose a threat to the population. Little is known about the public perception of landslide and flood ...risk. This is surprising, as an accurate perception is important for the successful implementation of many risk reduction or adaptation strategies. In an attempt to address this gap, we have conducted two national surveys to measure the perception of landslide and flood risk amongst the population of Italy. The surveys were conducted in 2012 and 2013, and consisted of approximately 3100 computer-assisted telephone interviews for each survey. The samples of the interviewees were statistically representative for a national-scale quantitative assessment. The interviewees were asked questions designed to obtain information on (i) their perception of natural, environmental, and technological risks, (ii) direct experience or general knowledge of the occurrence of landslides and floods in their municipality, (iii) perception of the possible threat posed by landslides and floods to their safety, (iv) general knowledge on the number of victims affected by landslides or floods, and on (v) the factors that the interviewees considered important for controlling landslide and flood risks in Italy. The surveys revealed that the population of Italy fears technological risks more than natural risks. Of the natural risks, earthquakes were considered more dangerous than floods, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. Examination of the temporal and geographical distributions of the responses revealed that the occurrence of recent damaging events influenced risk perception locally, and that the perception persisted longer for earthquakes and decreased more rapidly for landslides and floods. We explain the difference by the diverse consequences of the risks. The interviewees considered inappropriate land management the main cause of landslide and food risk, followed by illegal construction, abandonment of the territory, and climate change. Comparison of the risk perception with actual measures of landslide and flood risk, including the number of fatal events, the number of fatalities, and the mortality rates, revealed that in most of the Italian regions, the perception of the threat did not match the long-term risk posed to the population by landslides and floods. This outcome points to a need to foster an understanding of the public towards landslide and flood hazards and risks in Italy.
Systematic and timely documentation of triggered (i.e. event) landslides is fundamental to build extensive datasets worldwide that may help define and/or validate trends in response to climate ...change. More in general, preparation of landslide inventories is a crucial activity since it provides the basic data for any subsequent analysis. In this work we present an event landslide inventory map (E-LIM) that was prepared through a systematic reconnaissance field survey in about 1 month after an extreme rainfall event hit an area of about 5000 km
in the Marche-Umbria regions (central Italy). The inventory reports evidence of 1687 triggered landslides in an area of ~550 km
. All slope failures were classified according to type of movement and involved material, and documented with field pictures, wherever possible. The database of the inventory described in this paper as well as the collection of selected field pictures associated with each feature is publicly available at figshare.
We describe a semi-automatic procedure for the classification of satellite imagery into landslide or no landslide categories, aimed at preparing event landslide inventory maps. The two-steps ...procedure requires knowledge of the occurrence of a landslide event, availability of a pre- and post- event pseudo-stereo pair and a digital elevation model. The first step consists in the evaluation of a discriminant function, applied to a combination of well-known change detection indices tuned on landslide spectral response. The second step is devoted to discriminant function classification, aimed at distinguishing the only landslide class, through an improvement of the usual 'thresholding' method. We devised a multi-threshold classification, in which thresholding is applied separately in small subsets of the scene. We show that using slope units as topographic-aware subsets produces best classification performance when compared to the ground truth of a landslide inventory prepared by visual interpretation. The method proved to be superior to the use of a single threshold and to any multi-threshold procedure based on topography-blind subdivisions of the scene, especially in the validation stage. We argue that the improved classification performance and limited training requirements represent a step forward towards an automatic, real-time landslide mapping from satellite imagery.
A 1:5,000 scale geological map and 31 geological cross-sections are presented for the surroundings of Amatrice village (central Apennines, Italy), epicentral area of the first damaging earthquake of ...the 2016-2017 seismic sequence. This detailed geological dataset focuses on: (i) the extent, the thickness, and the internal stratigraphic architecture of the Quaternary continental deposits; (ii) the bedding and the thickness of the Miocene substratum; and (iii) the spatial distribution of the main fault systems. The provided dataset would update the available regional geological maps in deciphering the syn-to-post-orogenic history of the Amatrice Basin. Eventually, the accuracy of the geological mapping would represent a basic tool for interpreting and integrating the multidisciplinary dataset deriving from post-seismic activities.
Landslide inventories provide the knowledge basis for many geomorphological applications and also planning and emergency management. Detailed landslide inventories should also be prepared where ...pre-existing inventories are available, as knowledge updates. In this paper, we present a new geomorphological landslide inventory for an area of the High Agri Valley, Southern Italian Apennines. The map was prepared through systematic interpretation of historical aerial photographs testing extensive use of anaglyph glasses in StereoPhoto Maker freeware. A total of 2124 landslides were classified based on the type of movement, estimated depth, estimated relative age and three levels of uncertainty, providing landslide attributes and map constraints useful for land planning and hazard studies. The map also documents the relationships between landslides and fluvial landforms of different generations, recording important information to investigate the geomorphological evolution of the area further. We expect that landslide mapping in similar environments will benefit from the workflow here presented.
Automatic subdivision of landscapes into terrain units remains a challenge. Slope units are terrain units bounded by drainage and divide lines, but their use in hydrological and geomorphological ...studies is limited because of the lack of reliable software for their automatic delineation. We present the r.slopeunits software for the automatic delineation of slope units, given a digital elevation model and a few input parameters. We further propose an approach for the selection of optimal parameters controlling the terrain subdivision for landslide susceptibility modeling. We tested the software and the optimization approach in central Italy, where terrain, landslide, and geo-environmental information was available. The software was capable of capturing the variability of the landscape and partitioning the study area into slope units suited for landslide susceptibility modeling and zonation. We expect r.slopeunits to be used in different physiographical settings for the production of reliable and reproducible landslide susceptibility zonations.
Landslides leave discernible signs on the land surface, most of which can be
captured in remote sensing images. Trained geomorphologists analyse remote
sensing images and map landslides through ...heuristic interpretation of
photographic and morphological characteristics. Despite a wide use of remote
sensing images for landslide mapping, no attempt to evaluate how the image
characteristics influence landslide identification and mapping exists. This
paper presents an experiment to determine the effects of optical image
characteristics, such as spatial resolution, spectral content and image type
(monoscopic or stereoscopic), on landslide mapping. We considered eight maps
of the same landslide in central Italy: (i) six maps obtained through expert
heuristic visual interpretation of remote sensing images, (ii) one map
through a reconnaissance field survey, and (iii) one map obtained through a
real-time kinematic (RTK) differential global positioning system (dGPS)
survey, which served as a benchmark. The eight maps were compared pairwise
and to a benchmark. The mismatch between each map pair was quantified by
the error index, E. Results show that the map closest to the benchmark
delineation of the landslide was obtained using the higher resolution image,
where the landslide signature was primarily photographical (in the landslide
source and transport area). Conversely, where the landslide signature was
mainly morphological (in the landslide deposit) the best mapping result was
obtained using the stereoscopic images. Albeit conducted on a single
landslide, the experiment results are general, and provide useful
information to decide on the optimal imagery for the production of event,
seasonal and multi-temporal landslide inventory maps.
Over the last 2 decades, the topic of earthquake-triggered landslides (EQTLs) has shown increasing relevance in the scientific community. This interest is confirmed by the numerous articles published ...in international, peer-reviewed journals. In this work we present a database containing a selection of articles published on this topic from 1984 to 2021. The articles were selected through a systematic search on the Clarivate™ Web of Science™ Core Collection online platform and were catalogued into a web-based GIS (web-GIS), which was specifically designed to show different types of information. After a general analysis of the database, for each article the following aspects were identified: the bibliometric information (e.g. author(s), title, publication year), the relevant topic and sub-topic category (or categories), and the earthquake(s) addressed. The analysis allowed us to infer general information and statistics on EQTLs (e.g. relevant methodological approaches over time and in relation to the scale of investigation, most studied events), which can be useful to obtain a spatial distribution of the articles and a general overview of the topic.
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