Definition of Environmental Indicators for a Fast Estimation of Landslide Risk at National Scale

Samuele Segoni and Francesco Caleca
Additional contact information
Samuele Segoni: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Florence, Via La Pira 4, 50121 Florence, Italy
Francesco Caleca: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Florence, Via La Pira 4, 50121 Florence, Italy

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-14

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to propose a new set of environmental indicators for the fast estimation of landslide risk over very wide areas. Using Italy (301,340 km 2 ) as a test case, landslide susceptibility maps and soil sealing/land consumption maps were combined to derive a spatially distributed indicator (LRI—landslide risk index), then an aggregation was performed using Italian municipalities as basic spatial units. Two indicators were defined, namely ALR (averaged landslide risk) and TLR (total landslide risk). All data were processed using GIS programs. Conceptually, landslide susceptibility maps account for landslide hazard while soil sealing maps account for the spatial distribution of anthropic elements exposed to risk (including buildings, infrastructure, and services). The indexes quantify how much the two issues overlap, producing a relevant risk and can be used to evaluate how each municipality has been prudent in planning sustainable urban growth to cope with landslide risk. The proposed indexes are indicators that are simple to understand, can be adapted to various contexts and at various scales, and could be periodically updated, with very low effort, making use of the products of ongoing governmental monitoring programs of Italian environment. Of course, the indicators represent an oversimplification of the complexity of landslide risk, but this is the first time that a landslide risk indicator has been defined in Italy at the national scale, starting from landslide susceptibility maps (although Italy is one of the European countries most affected by hydro-geological hazards) and, more in general, the first time that land consumption maps are integrated into a landslide risk assessment.

Keywords: landslide; Italy; risk; soil sealing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/6/621/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/6/621/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:6:p:621-:d:571971

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().