Abstract
In recent years, pyroclastic covers mantling slopes in the Campania region of southern Italy have frequently been affected by flowslides. Due to high exposure and demographic pressure in these areas, assessment of the potential effects of climate change on the frequency of such events has become a crucial issue. In this regard, our paper proposes a simulation chain comprising three main elements: (i) climate simulation at the highest horizontal resolution available for Italy (8 km); (ii) a bias correction procedure in an attempt to remove systematic errors in the entire weather forcing probability distribution; (iii) the data obtained used as input for an interpretative tool estimating the evolution of soil pore water pressure and water storage (bulk water content) by means of a well-calibrated coupled thermo-hydraulic approach able to adequately take into account soil-atmosphere interaction dynamics. The predictive ability of the geotechnical model to reproduce failure conditions was tested by forcing it with temperature and precipitation observations. Subsequently, the performance of the entire modeling chain was evaluated for a period from 1981 to 2010. Lastly, variations in landslide occurrence were assessed up to 2100 under two concentration scenarios. An increase with different features was estimated under both scenarios depending on the time horizon and the severity of the concentration scenario.
Highlights
Over the past few years, investigations into how variations in the hydrological cycle, potentially induced by climate changes (CC), are affecting or might affect the magnitude and frequency of weather-induced landslides has met with limited interest, compared to interest in other geo-hydrological hazards, especially given the greater occurrence of the latter in recent years, and often with catastrophic consequences
This work attempts to provide an assessment of future variations of landslide events involving pyroclastic covers in the Campania region, under the potential effect of CC
The case study is interesting as the hydraulic behavior of the soils involved are “intermediate” between coarse and fine formations as for the location of slopes in the Mediterranean area, considered a hotspot for climate changes
Summary
Over the past few years, investigations into how variations in the hydrological cycle, potentially induced by climate changes (CC), are affecting or might affect the magnitude and frequency of weather-induced landslides has met with limited interest, compared to interest in other geo-hydrological hazards (i.e., droughts or pluvial flooding), especially given the greater occurrence of the latter in recent years, and often with catastrophic consequences (in this regard, see related datasets such as MunichRe, Em-DAT [1]). Over recent years, the increase in papers accounting for the effect of climate change on landslide activities is less than that of papers concerning landslide issues in general ([4,5]) On the whole, they tend to carry out analysis on the local scale (slope or basins), for which they adopt two main approaches: (i) assessment of past/ongoing variations in landslide occurrence based on long datasets of weather forcing and induced landslide events (e.g., [6,7]); or (ii) evaluations of future trends in landslide activities coupling climate and slope stability models (e.g., [8,9,10,11,12])
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
