The systematic of landslide processes in the conditions of Romania’s relief

Abstract

Landslides are extremely active slope-shaping processes. Their broad spectrum of processes and forms, alongside different types of displaced material is conditioned by a wide range of predisposing, preparing, and triggering factors. There are numerous attempts to classify them homogeneously, but quite often, the heterogeneity of the phenomenon imposes different criteria, depending on regions or scientific schools and approaches. Criteria like morphology and morphogenesis always found a common usage; meanwhile others like age or morphodynamic behavior are still debated. In Romania, the wide range of processes and forms, as well as the potential consequences inflicted to the socio-economic environment is well reflected within an extended geomorphologic literature, dealing with both fundamental and applied considerations. If for a long period of time, landslide systematic in Romanian geomorphology was predominantly descriptive, during the last two decades, one faces an almost completely shifted approach, changing from fundamental aspects to predictive studies, in the form of susceptibility, hazard, and risk. Through an in-depth review of the most important outcomes of the last 100 years’ literature in the field of landslide systematic, several milestones might be set up. The relationship between geomorphology and other geonomic sciences, as well as the connections between national and international literature are discussed in terms of common or uncommon criteria of classification. A concise description of the main types of landslides (according to modern literature) throughout Romania is given in terms of synthetic regional descriptions.