New Perspectives on Landslide Assessment for Spatial Planning in Austria

Abstract

Urban issues are increasingly prominent on the national policy agenda in Austria. The biggest policy challenges consist of the development of an integrated evaluation of the threats and risks (security level, protection objectives), in the preparation of accepted standards for the consideration of landslides as well as their use in spatial planning (OROK 2015). The Austrian Concept on Spatial Development (ACSD), which is a strategic instrument for federal policies in regional development, was set up to create a new cooperation at expert level and to develop basic approaches for key issues in an interdisciplinary forum. The ACSD-partnership for “Risk management for gravitative natural hazards” in spatial planning concerning slope processes (landslides including rock falls) was established in 2012 under the leadership of the Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management and Geological Survey of Austria to bridge the gap between geohazard mapping, risk management and spatial planning for these relevant phenomena. The results of this partnership are based on working papers produced by the working groups Spatial Planning, Geology and Sectoral Planning. The activities of the working group “Geology”, presented in this paper, consisted in the evaluation of the existing methods for the calculation of landslide susceptibility (and rock falls) and the impact area in terms of their suitability as well as in the creation of standards and guides to draw up susceptibility maps for spatial planning. Further recommendations are given in terms of the quality assurance, uncertainties, model validation and traceability.