This paper presents an application of rock engineering system (RES) in an attempt to reveal and assess the inherent instability potential of 388 sites where equivalent landslides have been manifested and recorded in the region of Karditsa County, Greece. The main objective has been defining the principal causative and triggering factors responsible for the manifestation of landslide phenomena, quantify their interactions, obtain their weighted coefficients, and calculate the instability index, which refers to the inherent potential instability of each natural slope of the examined region. From the statistical interpretation of the data reported in a well-documented database and concerning the examined failure sites, a clear correlation between the instability index and the area affected by a single landslide event has been revealed. Almost the entire failure sites, 98% of the examined slope sites, exhibit an instability index value over 55, a value which is thought to be a critical threshold for landslide manifestation concerning natural slopes in Karditsa County. It is argued that the presented RES methodology, engaging the selected set of parameters, could be considered as an effective expert's tool for ranking, in an objectively optimal and simple way, the instability potential of natural slopes in Karditsa County, and thus providing a tool for sound zoning landslide hazard.
The coastal zone is an area where many human activities are taking place. Erosion of the coast obstructs, in various ways, these activities creating occasionally serious socioeconomic and environmental problems. In this paper the coastal erosion problems encountered in the eastern Greek part of the North Aegean Sea Coast, a stretch of about 51 km long adjacent to the city of Alexandroupolis, are discussed. Given the observed type and location of erosion and other sea-action phenomena, the coast under study is divided in two parts/stretches. The western stretch, where the city of Alexandroupolis is presently extending, presents, mainly, cliff erosion problems and retreat of the coastline, very serious in some sections; whereas, the eastern stretch (to the east of the city) exhibits deposition and progression seawards due to the abundance of sediments supplied by Evros river delta. A classification of the coastline according to its relief, geologic material, erosion characteristics and rate, slope failure phenomena as well as the wave energy potential, is presented together with suggestions for case-appropriate mitigation and protection measures regarding the coastal erosion problems. The paper is focusing on the cliff erosion phenomena, since varying in height coastal cliffs made of soft rocks, cover the major part of the investigated coastline (western stretch).
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