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This paper presents a quantitative multi-temporal analysis performed in a GIS environment and based on different spatial information sources. The research is aimed at investigating the land use transformations that occurred in a small coastal terraced basin of Eastern Liguria from the early 1950s to 2011. The degree of abandonment of cultivated terraced slopes together with its influence on the distribution, abundance, and magnitude of rainfall-induced shallow landslides were accurately analysed. The analysis showed that a large portion of terraced area (77.4%) has been abandoned over approximately sixty years. This land use transformation has played a crucial role in influencing the hydro-geomorphological processes triggered by a very intense rainstorm that occurred in 2011. The outcomes of the analysis revealed that terraces abandoned for a short time showed the highest landslide susceptibility and that slope failures affecting cultivated zones were characterized by a lower magnitude than those which occurred on abandoned terraced slopes. Furthermore, this study highlights the usefulness of cadastral data in understanding the impact of rainfall-induced landslides due to both a high spatial and thematic accuracy. The obtained results represent a solid basis for the investigation of erosion and the shallow landslide susceptibility of terraced slopes by means of a simulation of land use change scenarios.

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The Cinque Terre National Park (38 km 2) has recently recorded a remarkable increase in tourists involved in outdoor activities such as hiking. However, due to the actual slope degradation issues that affect this outstanding terraced landscape, hiking trails are increasingly threatened by the impact of landslides. This produces severe landslide-related risk scenarios for hikers. In this study, a landslide inventory map (at 1:45000 scale) has been prepared through the revision/update of previous database and the analysis of air-photos and satellite images coupled with field surveys. Furthermore, a quantitative evaluation of the interaction between landslides and hiking trails has been performed by the definition of a Footpath Landslide Index. More than 400 landslides were identified highlighting that these phenomena represent the main source of hazard. The findings of this study reveal that sidehill trails are the most hazardous since hikers can be potentially affected by flow-like or fastmoving landslides.