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Rainfall Thresholds for Possible Occurrence of Shallow Landslides and Debris Flows in Italy

  • Maria Teresa Brunetti
  • Fabio Luino
  • Carmela Vennari
  • Silvia Peruccacci
  • Marcella Biddoccu
  • Daniela Valigi
  • Silvia Luciani
  • Chiara Giorgia Cirio
  • Mauro Rossi
  • Guido Nigrelli
  • Francesca Ardizzone
  • Mara Di Palma
  • Fausto Guzzetti
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Advances in Global Change Research book series (AGLO, volume 47)

Abstract

In mountain regions worldwide, rainfall-induced landslides and associated debris flows erode slopes, scour channels, and contribute to the formation of alluvial fans that may harm humans and destroy buildings. Rainfall-induced slope failures are frequent and widespread in Italy, where individual rainfall events can result in single or multiple slope failures in small areas or in very large regions. Most of the harmful failures were rainfall-induced, and several were shallow slides or debris flows. In the 60-year period 1950–2009, casualties due to landslides were at least 6,349, an average of 16 harmful events per annum. The large number of harmful events indicates the considerable risk posed by rainfall-induced shallow landslides and debris flows to the population of Italy (Guzzetti et al. 2005a; Salvati et al. 2010).

Keywords

Debris Flow Rainfall Event Slope Failure Rain Gauge Landslide Occurrence 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes

Acknowledgements

Part of the paper is reprinted from the work of Brunetti et al. (2010), and it is used with permission. Work supported by the Italian National Department for Civil Protection (DPC), which provided the national rainfall database for the period 2002–2009. MTB, SP and MR were supported by DPC grants. We thank G. Tonelli for the work on the rainfall database, and E. E. Brabb for reviewing the paper.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • Maria Teresa Brunetti
    • 1
  • Fabio Luino
    • 2
  • Carmela Vennari
    • 3
  • Silvia Peruccacci
    • 1
  • Marcella Biddoccu
    • 2
  • Daniela Valigi
    • 3
  • Silvia Luciani
    • 1
  • Chiara Giorgia Cirio
    • 2
  • Mauro Rossi
    • 1
  • Guido Nigrelli
    • 2
  • Francesca Ardizzone
    • 1
  • Mara Di Palma
    • 2
  • Fausto Guzzetti
    • 1
  1. 1.CNR IRPIPerugiaItaly
  2. 2.CNR IRPITorinoItaly
  3. 3.Dipartimento di Scienze della TerraUniversità degli Studi di PerugiaPerugiaItaly

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