The Influence of Land Use Change on Landslide Susceptibility Zonation: The Briga Catchment Test Site (Messina, Italy)

Abstract

The spatial distribution of landslides is influenced by different climatic conditions and environmental settings including topography, morphology, hydrology, lithology, and land use. In this work, we have attempted to evaluate the influence of land use change on landslide susceptibility (LS) for a small study area located in the southern part of the Briga catchment, along the Ionian coast of Sicily (Italy). On October 1, 2009, the area was hit by an intense rainfall event that triggered abundant slope failures and resulted in widespread erosion. After the storm, an inventory map showing the distribution of pre-event and event landslides was prepared for the area. Moreover, two different land use maps were developed: the first was obtained through a semi-automatic classification of digitized aerial photographs acquired in 1954, the second through the combination of supervised classifications of two recent QuickBird images. Exploiting the two land use maps and different land use scenarios, LS zonations were prepared through multivariate statistical analyses. Differences in the susceptibility models were analyzed and quantified to evaluate the effects of land use change on the susceptibility zonation. Susceptibility maps show an increase in the areal percentage and number of slope units classified as unstable related to the increase in bare soils to the detriment of forested areas.

Spatial Modeling in Landslide Susceptibility

“…Landuse/landcover as the most significant factor to the events of the landslides in the area might be caused by landuse change within the area that can cause instability. This study is in line with research done by [13] where the susceptibility had been affected strongly due to the increase of bare soil. The other following factors which were slope, followed by distance to river, soil type, and rainfall might be caused by the slope gradient and the condition of slope as the initiation factor of the instability of slope.…”

Potential future exposure of European land transport infrastructure to rainfall-induced landslides throughout the 21st century

“…vineyards in the Upper Rhine Plain), while forests prevail with increasing altitude. It is broadly recognised in landslide research literature that forested areas favour terrain stability, while agricultural areas and abandoned cultivated lands that gradually recovered through natural vegetation are particularly susceptible to instability (Persichillo et al, 2017;Peruccacci et al, 2017;Petitta et al, 2015;Reichenbach et al, 2014;Beguerí, 2006).…”

Susceptibility assessment of landslides: A comparison of two GIS-based methods in the region of Al Hoceima (Eastern Rif, Morocco).

“…Indeed, it is recognized that bare soils favor terrain instability [20]. In cover map was produced by the analysis of a Landsat ETM+ image (year 2000).…”