The Calaiza landslide on the coast of Granada (Andalusia, Spain)

Abstract

The Costa Tropical in Granada Province, in Southern Spain, was intensively developed during the 1980s and 90s. A complex of several residential communities was built on the eastern slope of the coastal Cerro Gordo hill (Almunecar), on the pre-existing Calaiza landslide. This was not identified in the preliminary technical studies, thus giving rise to a set of incidents associated with this unforeseen unstable slope. To ensure sea views from all the houses, excavations and fillings were carried out, creating a stepped slope, on which the new foundations of structures and roads were located and subsequently damaged by an increasing number of cracks and deformations, leading to 42 houses becoming ruins in the period 2003–2016. Since 1990, annual and monthly rainfall has been variable in the area, and some rainfall peaks were eventually associated with damage proliferation, although more frequently damage was recorded during dry or low rainfall seasons, when water infiltrated from breaks in pipelines. This damage results from a combination of sliding and bad construction practices at increasing rates from dry to humid periods or during heavy rains. An overall perspective of the geotechnical and geomorphological features of the study area, the landslide reactivation, and its correlation with the damage evolution, as well as its legal consequences, is presented here.