Landslide Susceptibility Mapping in the Vrancea-Buzau Seismic Region, Southeast Romania

This study presents the results of a landslide susceptibility analysis applied to the Vrancea-Buzau seismogenic region in the Carpathian Mountains, Romania. The target area is affected by a large diversity of landslide processes. Slopes are made-up of various types of rocks, climatic conditions can be classified as wet, and the area is a seismically active one. All this contributes to the observed high landslide hazard. The paper analyses the spatial component of the landslide hazard affecting the target area, the regional landslide susceptibility. First, an existing landslide inventory was completed to cover a wider area for the landslide susceptibility analysis. Second, two types of methods are applied, a purely statistical technique, based on correlations between landslide occurrence and local conditions, as well as the simplified spatial process-based Newmark Displacement analysis. Landslide susceptibility maps have been produced by applying both methods, the second one also allowing us to simulate different scenarios, based on various soil saturation rates and seismic inputs. Furthermore, landslide susceptibility was computed both for the landslide source and runout zones-the first providing information about areas where landslides are preferentially triggered and the second indicating where landslides preferentially move along the slope and accumulate. The analysis showed that any of the different methods applied produces reliable maps of landslide susceptibility. However, uncertainties were also outlined as validation is insufficient, especially in the northern area, where only a few landslides could be mapped due to the intense vegetation cover.

Automated summary

This study conducted a landslide susceptibility analysis in the Vrancea-Buzau seismogenic region in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, revealing a high hazard of landslides due to various processes. Statistical techniques and Newmark Displacement analysis were employed to produce susceptibility maps, indicating reliability of the methods used but also pointing out uncertainties in the validation process, especially in areas with dense vegetation cover.