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Landslide hazard zonation in high risk areas of Rethymno Prefecture, Crete Island, Greece

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Abstract

The central part of Rethymnon Prefecture, Crete Island, suffers from severe landslide phenomena because of its geological and geomorphological settings alternated by the human activities. The main landslide preparatory and triggering causal factors are considered to be the ground conditions (lithology), geomorphological processes (fluvial erosion, etc.), and the man-made actions (excavations, loading etc.). The purpose of this study is to develop a decision support and continuous monitoring system of the area by composing landslide hazard and risk maps. For that reason, several approaches of the weighted linear combination (WLC), a semi-quantitative hazard analysis method, were adopted in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) environment. The results were validated using a pre-existing landslide database enriched with new landslide locations mapped through image interpretation of a processed IKONOS satellite image. The validation results showed that the WLC method coupled with remote sensing (RS) and GIS techniques can support engineering geological studies concerning landslide vulnerability of hazardous areas.

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Acknowledgments

The project is co-funded by the European Social Fund and National Resources in the framework of the project INTERREG III B ARCHIMED, sub-project A1.020 entitled “Methodology integration of EO techniques as operative tool for land degradation management and planning in Mediterranean areas”. We are also grateful to the students (Nikos Nikakis and Argyro Stefanaki) involved in this work digitizing the topographic maps of the study area.

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  1. Institute of Natural Resources and Natural Hazards, Center of Technological Research of Crete (CTRC), 3 Romanou, Chalepa, 73133, Chania, Crete Island, Greece

    Maria Kouli, Pantelis Soupios & Filippos Vallianatos

  2. Engineering Geology Department, Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration (IGME), Olympic Village, Thrakomacedones, 13677, Athens, Greece

    Constantinos Loupasakis

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  1. Maria Kouli
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Kouli, M., Loupasakis, C., Soupios, P. et al. Landslide hazard zonation in high risk areas of Rethymno Prefecture, Crete Island, Greece. Nat Hazards 52, 599–621 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-009-9403-2

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