Spatial and temporal landslide distributions using global and open landslide databases

Abstract

Landslide databases are a potential tool for the analysis of landslide susceptibility, hazard, and risk. Additionally, the spatio-temporal distribution of landslides and their correlation with their triggering factors are inputs that facilitate the evaluation of landslide prediction models and the determination of thresholds necessary for early warning systems (EWS). This study presents an analysis of four widely known global databases—the International Disaster database (EM-DAT), the Disaster Inventory System (DesInventar), the Global Landslide Catalog (GLC), and the Global Fatal Landslide database (GFLD)—which contain relevant landslide information for different regions of the world. These databases were analysed and compared by means of the spatio-temporal distributions of their records. Subsequently, these databases were merged and depurated to obtain a more robust database, namely the Unified Global Landslide Database (UGLD), with 161 countries, 37,946 landslides, and 185,753 fatalities registered between 1903 and 2020. The merging process among the databases resulted in a small number of repeated landslides, indicating that the databases collect very different landslide information and complement each other. Finally, an update of the spatial and temporal analysis of landslides in the world was performed with the new database, in which patterns, trends, and the main triggers were presented and analysed. The results obtained from the analysis of the UGLD database show the American and Asian continents as the continents with the highest number of landslides and associated fatalities, showing a bimodal and unimodal annual temporal pattern, respectively. Regarding the most frequent triggers of landslides, rainfall, anthropogenic intervention, and earthquakes stand out.