Land Take and Landslide Hazard: Spatial Assessment and Policy Implications from a Study Concerning Sardinia

Abstract

Land take and soil sealing imply land cover transitions that may possibly result in decreased capacity to resist landslides; hence, this study focuses on the relations between land-taking processes and landslide hazard by addressing the following research question: “To what extent do land-taking processes increase landslide hazard?” The impact of land take is assessed through a regression model which relates the level of landslide hazard to a set of land cover variables which include artificialized land; that is, land taken up through urbanization processes, and a set of covariates that represent land cover types grouped in accordance with the LEAC (land and ecosystem accounting) classification. This methodological approach is implemented into the spatial context of Sardinia, an insular Italian region, and shows that not only the amount of taken up artificialized land, but also other types of land covers, are likely to increase the magnitude of landslide hazard. A set of implications concerning planning policies related to land cover and land cover transitions are discussed in the concluding section, where policy recommendations are identified in order to mitigate the impacts of land cover transitions on landslide hazards.