Earthquake-Induced Landslides: An Overview

Abstract

Strong earthquake has been a significant triggering factor of landslides in hilly and mountainous areas. Damages caused by earthquake-induced landslides are sometimes larger than damages related to the shaking of the earthquake itself. During the last decades, a number of reports have been published to show serious damages caused by landslides after a series of disastrous earthquake events in mountainous regions. A lot of researches on landslides induced by earthquakes have been intensively carried out by various institutions. In 2012, the Japan Landslide Society published a book “Earthquake-induced landslides” in Japanese and further organized an International Symposium on Earthquake-induced Landslides in Kiryu City in Japan. Nowadays earthquake is still unavoidable and unpredictable. The study of earthquake-induced landslides has a major importance for better understanding of the causal mechanisms and the relationship among the landslide type, size, occurrence location and geomorphology. This paper presents an overview of current issues and recent advances concerning earthquake-induced landslides. It includes (i) movement types, characteristics and processes; (ii) causal mechanisms; (iii) physical and numerical modeling; (iv) secondary disasters; (v) risk assessment and management. It is urgently needed to develop practical methods for risk evaluation and hazard zoning on the basis of recent knowledge with appropriate mitigation strategy in order to avoid catastrophic damages by earthquake-induced landslides.