Spatial and temporal occurrence of rainfall-induced shallow landslides of flow type: A case of Sarno-Quindici, Italy

Rainfall-induced shallow landslides of flow type provide unstable masses which often travel long run-out distances with high velocities, thus posing a high societal risk when they affect large areas. Therefore, analysis of their spatial and temporal occurrence is relevant to landslide hazard assessment as the first step of the risk analysis. In order to address this issue, this paper outlines a multidisciplinary procedure that is applied to the May 1998 Sarno-Quindici landslides (southern Italy), whose spatial and temporal occurrence is not satisfactorily addressed in current literature. The spatial occurrence of the landslides is analysed using heuristic models for both the source and propagation areas. The temporal occurrence of the landslides is firstly compiled and then related to the cumulated rainfall, stratigraphy and hydraulic boundary conditions. Finally, the spatial and temporal occurrence of the main landslide triggering mechanism is modelled over the whole affected area by analysing the groundwater regime and slope stability conditions. The obtained results show that the spatial and temporal occurrence is strongly related to stratigraphy and hydraulic boundary conditions at both the slope and massif scales. They also highlight a suitable procedure for assessing the spatial and temporal occurrence of complex landslides over large areas. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.