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Rockfall risk assessment to persons travelling in vehicles along a road: the case study of the Amalfi coastal road (southern Italy)

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Abstract

The paper deals with the assessment of rockfall risk to persons travelling in vehicles along the SS163 road, an important transportation corridor supporting a high vehicle traffic within the well-known tourist area of the Amalfi Coast (southern Italy). To this aim, the Rockfall Hazard Rating System (RHRS) and quantitative risk assessment (QRA) procedures, in this latter case for three rockfall risk scenarios, are applied. With reference to a large portion (33.820 out of a total of 50.365 km) of the SS163 road, the obtained QRA results highlight that, although the estimated individual risk to life satisfies the adopted tolerable risk criterion, the computed societal risk cannot be tolerated. Starting from this result, site-specific QRA analyses—carried out with reference to some road sections chosen on the basis of the RHRS results—allow the detection of the SS163 portions where the individual risk to life exceeds the tolerable risk threshold and, then, the recourse to mitigation measures could reveal necessary. In this regard, RHRS and QRA methods can be considered complementary tools in prioritizing the road sections where construction funds can be profitably spent in order to mitigate the rockfall risk with reference to both direct consequences (life loss) and indirect ones (traffic delay and diversions).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Salerno, via Ponte don Melillo, 84084, Fisciano, SA, Italy

    Settimio Ferlisi & Leonardo Cascini

  2. Department of Geotechnical Engineering and Geosciences, Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Jordi Girona 1-3, D-2 Building, 08034, Barcelona, Spain

    Jordi Corominas

  3. via Cimarosa 93, 80127, Napoli, Italy

    Fabio Matano

Authors
  1. Settimio Ferlisi
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  2. Leonardo Cascini
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  3. Jordi Corominas
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  4. Fabio Matano
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Correspondence to Settimio Ferlisi.

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Ferlisi, S., Cascini, L., Corominas, J. et al. Rockfall risk assessment to persons travelling in vehicles along a road: the case study of the Amalfi coastal road (southern Italy). Nat Hazards 62, 691–721 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-012-0102-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-012-0102-z

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