Landsliding events triggered by rainfalls in the enna area (South Italy)

Abstract

The factors affecting slope stability are various, and virtually most are closely interconnected. Among these, meteoric events (or rather, the effects induced by these) are of primary importance, both as predisposing elements, and above all, as triggering factors. Detailed models describing hydrological phenomena at hill-slope scale are complex and expensive. Alternatively, simpler conceptual or empirical models can be used. These models directly correlate rainfall and landslide occurrence and may give satisfactory results both in hazard analysis and real-time forecast. Empirical thresholds are defined collecting rainfall data for landslide meteoric events and for events without landslides. In this paper, the results of a hydrological model correlating the rainfall amount and the landslide occurrences in the Enna area (South Italy) are reported and discussed. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.