Brief communication: Using averaged soil moisture estimates to improve the performances of a regional-scale landslide early warning system

We communicate the results of a preliminary investigation aimed at improving a state-of-the-art RSLEWS (regional-scale landslide early warning system) based on rainfall thresholds by integrating mean soil moisture values averaged over the territorial units of the system. We tested two approaches. Th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNatural hazards and earth system sciences Vol. 18; no. 3; pp. 807 - 812
Main Authors Segoni, Samuele, Rosi, Ascanio, Lagomarsino, Daniela, Fanti, Riccardo, Casagli, Nicola
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Katlenburg-Lindau Copernicus GmbH 13.03.2018
Copernicus Publications
Subjects
Alarms
Communication
Early warning systems
False alarms
Landslides
Landslides & mudslides
Performance enhancement
Rain
Rainfall
Soil
Soil improvement
Soil moisture
Thresholds
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Summary:We communicate the results of a preliminary investigation aimed at improving a state-of-the-art RSLEWS (regional-scale landslide early warning system) based on rainfall thresholds by integrating mean soil moisture values averaged over the territorial units of the system. We tested two approaches. The simplest can be easily applied to improve other RSLEWS: it is based on a soil moisture threshold value under which rainfall thresholds are not used because landslides are not expected to occur. Another approach deeply modifies the original RSLEWS: thresholds based on antecedent rainfall accumulated over long periods are substituted with soil moisture thresholds. A back analysis demonstrated that both approaches consistently reduced false alarms, while the second approach reduced missed alarms as well.
ISSN:1684-9981
1561-8633
1684-9981
DOI:10.5194/nhess-18-807-2018