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Effects of climate change on shallow landslides in a small coastal catchment in southern Italy

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Abstract

In different areas of the world, shallow landslides represent a remarkable hazard inducing fatalities and economic damages. Then, the evaluation about potential variation in frequency of such hazard under the effect of climate changes should be a priority for defining reliable adaptation measurements. Unfortunately, current performances of climate models on sub-daily scales, relevant for heavy rainfall events triggering shallow landslides, are not reliable enough to be used directly for performing slope stability analysis. In an attempt to overcome the constrains by gap in time resolution between climate and hazard models, the paper presents an integrated suitable approach for estimating future variations in shallow landslide hazard and managing the uncertainties associated with climate and sub-daily downscaling models. The approach is tested on a small basin on Amalfi coast (southern Italy). Basing on available basin scale critical rainfall thresholds, the paper outlines how the projected changes in precipitation patterns could affect local slope stability magnitude scenarios with different relevances as effect of investigated time horizon and concentration scenario. The paper concludes with qualitative evaluations on the future effectiveness of the local operative warning system in a climate change framework.

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Acknowledgments

The research leading to these results received funding from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research and the Italian Ministry of Environment, Land and Sea under the GEMINA and Next Data projects. The authors would like to thank the Regional Civil Protection Department (Campania region) for having kindly provided the rainfall data and the Italian Military Geographical Institute. The authors are also grateful to the River Basin Authority Campania Sud e Interregionale per il bacino idrografico del fiume Sele and GEORES – A. Carbone and A. Gallo Associated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. REgional Models and geo-Hydrological Impacts (REMHI), Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, CMCC Foundation, via Maiorise, Capua, Italy

    F. Ciervo, G. Rianna & P. Mercogliano

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132, Fisciano, SA, Italy

    F. Ciervo & M. N. Papa

  3. Italian Aerospace Research Center (CIRA), via Maiorise, Capua, Italy

    P. Mercogliano

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  1. F. Ciervo
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  2. G. Rianna
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Correspondence to F. Ciervo.

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Ciervo, F., Rianna, G., Mercogliano, P. et al. Effects of climate change on shallow landslides in a small coastal catchment in southern Italy. Landslides 14, 1043–1055 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-016-0743-1

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