This open access book provides an overview of the progress in landslide research and technology and is part of a book series of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). It gives an overview ...of recent progress in landslide research and technology for practical applications and the benefit for the society contributing to understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk.
Rainfall-induced landslides are one of the most frequent natural disasters. Detection of changes in the characteristics of the rainfall events that can be regarded as triggering factor is therefore ...of primary importance for policy-makers, practitioners, civil protection units and others. This study evaluated changes in the frequency and intensity of rainfall events above selected empirical rainfall thresholds at the pan-European level. For areas classified as at least moderately susceptible to landslides according to the ELSUS v2 map (i.e. around 1.8 * 10
6
km
2
; around 37% of the area), changes were evaluated for the 1961–2018 period. The regional rainfall reanalysis data was used as input. Four different empirical rainfall thresholds were selected and changes in the frequency of rainfall events above the thresholds and their characteristics were analysed. The results showed that, on average, 14% more rainfall events above the threshold were recorded in the 1991–2018 period compared to 1961–1990 at the European level according to the selected empirical rainfall threshold. Moreover, several regions were found where frequency and intensity of rainfall events above the four selected global empirical rainfall thresholds were positive and statistically significant. These regions were for example Italy, Carpathian Mountains, British Isles and some other parts of Europe. Some of these areas are also regions where landslides susceptibility is high or even very high and where multiple landslides were recorded in the past. On the other hand, there are also regions where frequency and intensity of events above the threshold were negative and statistically significant. These regions were parts of Central Europe, Alps and Pyrenees. Also, in these regions landslides frequently occur. According to different empirical thresholds, no significant change in the frequency of rainfall events above the thresholds could be detected for around 50% of the investigated area.
Compound extreme weather events can cause large economic damage and endanger human lives. Therefore, identification of changes in such compound event frequency and magnitude is important information ...that could be useful for decision makers and practitioners in water management and agriculture sector. This is especially the case for dry hazards that can be significantly influenced by the increasing air temperature and can have significant impact on water availability and consumption as well as on agricultural production. This study investigated changes in the compound occurrence of drought and extreme heat at the European scale using Uncertainties in Ensembles of Regional Reanalyses (UERRA) regional reanalysis data for the 1961–2018 period. The effective drought index (EDI) and the air temperature percentile threshold were used for the identification of the compound events at the catchment scale where entire Europe was divided into more than 4000 catchments. The results revealed multiple hotspots of compound drought and extreme heat events such as parts of Western Europe, Italy, Balkan Peninsula and Northern and Eastern Europe. At the continental scale, no uniform trend pattern could be detected. However, multiple areas with either positive or negative changes were identified. A positive change was characteristic for parts of Western Europe, Italy, Balkan Peninsula, etc. In these cases, the trend was mostly driven by the decreasing total precipitation trend and was not directly affected by the increasing air temperature trend. Areas with negative changes include parts of Northern and Eastern Europe and British Isles. In these cases, the detected trend was mostly driven by an increasing total precipitation trend. However, local drivers could be different.
This open access book provides an overview of the progress in landslide research and technology and is part of a book series of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). The book provides a ...common platform for the publication of recent progress in landslide research and technology for practical applications and the benefit for the society contributing to the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020, which is expected to continue up to 2030 and even beyond to globally promote the understanding and reduction of landslide disaster risk, as well as to address the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals.
Dissemination of research results is an important part of basic as well as applied research if not the most important one. A large part of research results is published in scientific literature, and ...since there are many forms of it, the question arises which form is the most visible and attractive to the world scientific community. The International Consortium on Landslides (ICL), based in Kyoto, Japan, is one of the leading institutions in the field of landslide research and landslide risk reduction. On behalf of ICL, Springer Nature has published the journal
Landslides: Journal of the International Consortium on Landslides
since 2004. It is a very successful scientific journal with regard to its scientometric parameters. Since January 2018, it has been a monthly journal published in full color in electronic as well as printed form. Another form of dissemination of the ICL scientific and professional activities are published books in the form of monographs and proceedings from triennial World Landslide Forums. This paper discusses the impact of 52 books with 3426 chapters taken from the field of landslide science and published by Springer Nature from 2005 to 2018 in the earth sciences category, using different scientometric parameters, such as Bookmetrix downloads and citations, Scopus citations, Scopus h-index, Google citations, and Google h-index. The analysis was performed on the book chapter level (using mainly citations as the main scientometric parameter) as well as on the book level (using book h-index and percentage of cited chapters). Out of the selected 52 titles, 22 were published on behalf of the ICL, with 1419 chapters. The differences among landslide-related books can be quite large; only a few chapters from analyzed book titles were found to be cited frequently compared to highly cited scientific journal articles. On average, the analyzed 3426 book chapters from 52 landslide-related books have been downloaded since publication over 53,000 times each; 1092 chapters (32%) received 2932 citations (2.68 citations per cited chapter and 0.86 citations per published chapter). The analysis shows that the books published on behalf of the ICL are, together with other landslide-related book titles, on the forefront in the Springer eBook collection Earth and Environmental Science (EES). The selected 52 landslide-related book titles are above the average metrics for the whole EES with regard to the total number of downloads per book, the total number of citations per book, and the total number of readers per book. The ICL-related books are getting more downloads but less readers and citations (so far) as the selected non-ICL-related books. A way in raising the visibility and impact of the ICL books on landslide research community would be to support their open access publication in the form of e-Books as much as possible, and inclusion of ICL books into Web of Science.
Debris flows are among the natural hazards that can occur in mountainous areas and endanger people’s lives and cause large economic damage. Debris flow modelling is needed in multiple applications ...such as design of protection measures or preparation of debris flow risk maps. Many models are available that can be used for debris flow modelling. The Rapid Mass Movement Simulation (RAMMS) model with its debris flow module, (i.e. RAMMS-DF) is one of the most commonly used ones. This review provides a comprehensive overview of past debris flow modelling applications in an alpine environment with their main characteristics, including study location, debris flow magnitude, simulation resolution, and Voellmy-fluid friction model parameter ranges, (i.e.
μ
and
ξ
). A short overview of each study is provided. Based on the review conducted, it is clear that RAMMS parameter ranges are relatively wide. Furthermore, model calibration using debris-flow post-event survey field data is the essential step that should be done before applying the model. However, an overview of the parameters can help to limit the parameter ranges. Particularly when considering the similarity between relevant case studies conducted in similar environments. This is especially relevant should the model be applied for estimating debris-flow hazard for potential future events. This model has been used mostly in Europe, (i.e. Alpine region) for modelling small and extremely large debris flows.
Scientific literature is becoming daily more and more abundant. Scientific and professional journals as primary information sources are competing to each other to attract readership. Their position ...(ranking, visibility, attractiveness, prestige) in scientific community can be measured by using different journal bibliometric and scientometric parameters, journal impact factor being only one of them. Springer Nature publishes the journal
Landslides
:
Journal of the International Consortium on Landslides
since 2004. Being examined in the past by different authors from bibliometric and editorial point of view, this review on the journal’s achievements confirmed the high ranking of this journal in the fields of geological and geotechnical engineering and engineering geology. Strong and weak points are discussed from the bibliometric point of view, stressing the need for higher internationality of co-authorship of published articles in order to be true international journal. Continuous publishing and the move to a monthly journal in 2018 will eventually increase journal’s h-index and cited half-life of citations, but further editorial efforts should be directed to attract excellent review papers and focused technical notes to increase cites per paper. Until now, the journal
Landslides
is the foremost journal in the field of landslide disaster risk reduction, and the top young international journal in the field of geological engineering and engineering geology.
•Rainstorms erosivity is investigated through Lorenz curve and derived coefficients.•The largest values of inter-annual inequality is observed for the Alpine region.•No clear regional pattern in the ...derived Gini coefficients could be detected.•On average, 11% of all erosive events contribute to the 50% of the total erosivity.•Higher erosive events tend to occur later in the year then less erosive events.
Heavy rainstorms play a central role in the water-driving soil erosion processes. An in-depth knowledge about temporal and spatial erosivity of rainfall events is required to gain a better understanding of soil erosion processes and optimize soil protection measures efficiency. In this study, the spatiotemporal distribution of more than 300,000 erosive events measured at 1181 locations, part of the Rainfall Erosivity Database at European Scale (REDES) database, is studied to shed some new light on the rainfall erosivity in Europe. Rainfall erosive events are statistically investigated through the Lorenz curve and derived coefficients such as the Gini coefficient (G). Additionally, seasonal characteristics of the most and the less erosive events are compared to investigate seasonal characteristics of rainstorms across Europe. The G shows largest values of inequality of the inter-annual temporal distribution of the rainfall erosive events in the Alpine region, mostly due to the large number of rainfall events with smaller rainfall erosivity. While for other parts of Europe, the inequality described by the G is mostly due to a small number of high erosive events. The G slightly decreases from south to north while no clear regional patterns can be detected. Additionally, in Europe, on average 11% (ranging from 1 to 24%) of all erosive events contribute to form 50% of the total rainfall erosivity. Furthermore, higher erosive rainfall events tend to occur later in the year compared to less erosive events that take place earlier. To our knowledge, this study is the first one addressing event scale rainfall erosivity distribution using more than 300,000 rainfall erosivity events and covering almost a whole continent. Scientifically our findings represent a major step towards large-scale process-based erosion modelling while, practically, they provide new elements that can support national and local soil erosion monitoring programs.
•First global application of the Erosion Potential Model (EPM) is done.•Model validation is done using sediment yield data for more than 100 catchments.•Two SDR equations were tested for the estimate ...of the net erosion rates.•Modified version of the EPM (mEPM) yields better results compared to the EPM.•Both EPM and mEPM are also associated with several shortcomings.
Soil erosion is expected to increase in the future due to climate change. Soil erosion models are useful tools that can be used by decision makers and other stakeholders to deal with soil erosion problems or the implementation of soil protection measures. Most of the modelling applications are using Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE)-type models. In this study, we evaluate the applicability of the Erosion Potential Model (EPM) and its modified version (mEPM) for the estimation of the gross and net erosion rates at a global scale. The sensitivity analysis shows that the model results have the highest variability due to the soil protection (land cover) coefficient followed by the soil erodibility parameter. The models’ evaluations indicate that that the EPM cannot be applied to cold regions while the mEPM overcomes this issue. The erosion rates based on the EPM were 1.5–2.5 times larger than the ones obtained from the mEPM. Increasing the number of catchment properties as inputs to the model may help in improving the performance of the tested EPM and mEPM. Moreover, a comparison of net soil losses by mEPM with long-term suspended sediment yield data for 116 catchments located around the globe indicates a median bias of less than 10%, although the bias for around 1/3 of catchments was above 100%. Furthermore, a direct comparison with other soil erosion models such as USLE-type models is not possible since the EPM and mEPM do take into consideration other processes such as soil slumps and gully erosion and not just sheet and rill erosion. Therefore, as expected, the gross erosion rates by the EPM and mEPM are higher compared to the USLE-type models. Hence, the mEPM, despite its limitations, could be regarded as an interesting approach for the describing erosion processes around the globe and should be further tested using small- and medium-sized catchments from various climate zones.
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