Effects of climate change on shallow landslides in a small coastal catchment in southern Italy

• Published in: Landslides Vol. 14; no. 3; pp. 1043 - 1055
• Main Authors: Ciervo, F., Rianna, G., Mercogliano, P., Papa, M. N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.06.2017; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adaptation; Agriculture; Catchment area; Civil Engineering; Climate change; Climate effects; Climate models; Damage assessment; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Evaluation; Frameworks; Frequency variation; Geography; Geological hazards; Heavy rainfall; Landslides; Landslides & mudslides; Natural Hazards; Original Paper; Precipitation patterns; Rain; Rainfall; Slope stability; Stability analysis; Warning systems; Italy; Regional climate models (RCMs); Random parameter Bartlett-Lewis (RPBL); Shallow landslides; Critical rainfall thresholds (CRTs); Warning systems; Climate changes; Global climate models (GCMs)
• ISSN: 1612-510X; 1612-5118
• DOI: 10.1007/s10346-016-0743-1

In different areas of the world, shallow landslides represent a remarkable hazard inducing fatalities and economic damages. Then, the evaluation about potential variation in frequency of such hazard under the effect of climate changes should be a priority for defining reliable adaptation measurements. Unfortunately, current performances of climate models on sub-daily scales, relevant for heavy rainfall events triggering shallow landslides, are not reliable enough to be used directly for performing slope stability analysis. In an attempt to overcome the constrains by gap in time resolution between climate and hazard models, the paper presents an integrated suitable approach for estimating future variations in shallow landslide hazard and managing the uncertainties associated with climate and sub-daily downscaling models. The approach is tested on a small basin on Amalfi coast (southern Italy). Basing on available basin scale critical rainfall thresholds, the paper outlines how the projected changes in precipitation patterns could affect local slope stability magnitude scenarios with different relevances as effect of investigated time horizon and concentration scenario. The paper concludes with qualitative evaluations on the future effectiveness of the local operative warning system in a climate change framework.