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The Rwenzori Mountains, a landslide-prone region?

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Abstract

With its exceptionally steep topography, wet climate, and active faulting, landslides can be expected to occur in the Rwenzori Mountains. Whether or not this region is prone to landsliding and more generally whether global landslide inventories and hazard assessments are accurate in data-poor regions such as the East African highlands are thus far unclear. In order to address these questions, a first landslide inventory based on archive information is built for the Rwenzori Mountains. In total, 48 landslide and flash flood events, or combinations of these, are found. They caused 56 fatalities and considerable damage to road infrastructure, buildings, and cropland, and rendered over 14,000 persons homeless. These numbers indicate that the Rwenzori Mountains are landslide-prone and that the impact of these events is significant. Although not based on field investigations but on archive data from media reports and laymen accounts, our approach provides a useful complement to global inventories overlooking this region and increases our understanding of the phenomenon in the Rwenzori Mountains. Considering the severe impacts of landslides, the population growth and related anthropogenic interventions, and the likelihood of more intense rainfall conditions, there is an urgent need to invest in research on disaster risk reduction strategies in this region and other similar highland areas of Africa.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Belgium Science Policy (BELSPO) through the AfReSlide project BR/121/A2/AfReSlide entitled “Landslides in Equatorial Africa: Identifying culturally, technically and economically feasible resilience strategies.” We want to thank Dr. Pablo Grosse for the help provided in the topographic analysis. We thank three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Earth System Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050, Brussels, Belgium

    Liesbet Jacobs & Matthieu Kervyn

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Leuvensesteenweg 13, 3080, Tervuren, Belgium

    Liesbet Jacobs, Olivier Dewitte & Damien Delvaux

  3. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E, 3001, Leuven-Heverlee, Belgium

    Jean Poesen & Wim Thiery

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  1. Liesbet Jacobs
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Jacobs, L., Dewitte, O., Poesen, J. et al. The Rwenzori Mountains, a landslide-prone region?. Landslides 13, 519–536 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-015-0582-5

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