Landslide Susceptibility Mapping under the Climate Change Impact in the Chania Regional Unit, West Crete, Greece

Constantinos Nefros, Dimitrios S. Tsagkas, Gianna Kitsara, Constantinos Loupasakis () and Christos Giannakopoulos
Additional contact information
Constantinos Nefros: Laboratory of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Zografou, 15780 Athens, Greece
Dimitrios S. Tsagkas: Hellenic Survey of Geology and Mineral Exploration (HSGME), 11527 Athens, Greece
Gianna Kitsara: Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, National Observatory of Athens, 15236 Athens, Greece
Constantinos Loupasakis: Laboratory of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Zografou, 15780 Athens, Greece
Christos Giannakopoulos: Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, National Observatory of Athens, 15236 Athens, Greece

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-25

Abstract: Over the preceding decades, climate change has affected precipitation, the most common factor triggering landslides. The aim of this study is to highlight this impact by examining the precipitation trends in the Chania regional unit, Greece, with the help of the precipitation time series provided by 21 local meteorological stations covering a period from 1955 to 2020. The analysis also focuses on the extreme precipitation events of February 2019, where the monthly cumulated precipitation amount reached 1225 mm, one of the highest ever recorded in Greece. Moreover, an inventory of past and recent landslides was created and the intensity–duration landslide precipitation thresholds were evaluated. Daily simulations of precipitation from three state-of-the-art regional climate models were used to analyze precipitation patterns under two representative concentration pathways (RCPs), 4.5 and 8.5, for the period 2030–2060. The application of the estimated precipitation thresholds on the daily future precipitation projections revealed an increase in the following decades of the precipitation events that can activate a landslide and, therefore, highlighted the climate change impact. Moreover, the mean annual precipitation of the preceding 10 years was evaluated and used along with local hydro-geological data and the recent landslide inventory, providing approximately a 5% more effective landslide susceptibility map compared with the relative maps produced by using the mean annual precipitation evaluated for the control period (1976–2005) and for the preceding 30 years. Thus, landslide susceptibility emerges as a dynamic process and the landslide susceptibility map needs to be regularly updated due to the significant and ongoing changes in precipitation because of climate change.

Keywords: landslides; climate change; susceptibility mapping; heavy rainfall; field investigations; remote sensing; landslide precipitation thresholds; early warning system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/1/154/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/1/154/ (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:12:y:2023:i:1:p:154-:d:1023281

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 ().