Triggering Mechanisms and Dynamics of Landslides

Dear Colleagues,

Landslides are a major hazard in mountainous regions, causing substantial economic losses and fatalities worldwide. Two aspects are crucial for comprehensive landslide hazard assessment and for consequent risk mitigation: the understanding of the mechanisms by which natural or antropogenic processes (rainfall, earthquakes, infrastructure development, construction, etc.) trigger landslides in certain locations, and also the comprehension of how they move through the landscape and evolve with time. 

Ever-increasing data acquisition from individual or multiple landslide events by means of in situ methods, remote sensing and UAV, has broadened the knowledge about landslide predisposing factors and triggering mechanisms. Such knowledge is contributing to the development and calibration of new models aimed at landslide susceptibility analysis or at failure predictions.

Moreover, as the destructive power and fatal consequences of landslides are strognly linked to their dynamics, parameters such as velocity, deformation, runout distance and kinetic energy should be included in hazard assessments.

Given the challenges related to the observation of landslide initiation and to the attainment of high spatial and temporal resolution of their movement, data acquisition and modelling of landslide mechanics and dynamics remain key areas of investigation.

In this Special Issue, we offer the opportunity to present high-quality works on the modelling and monitoring of any type of landslides (from shallow to deep landslides involving different types of geologic materials). We encourage submissions related to, but not limited to:

• Monitoring of initiation processes or movement of fast or slow landslides using in situ or remote sensing
• Landslide susceptbility using heuristic, data-driven, empirical or physical-based models
• Analytical or probabilistic models to predict landslide failure mechanisms and/or runout
• Hydrometeorological forecasting of rainfall-triggered landslides and their implications in early warning systems.

Contributions including case studies at local or regional scale, reviews of the state of the art or methodological papers are welcome.

Dr. Clàudia Abancó
Dr. Benedetta Dini
Guest Editors

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• landslide hazard
• landslide susceptibility analysis
• landslide runout modelling
• physical-based and data-driven models
• local and regional scale
• landslide-triggering hydrometeorological thresholds
• landslide monitoring
• early warning systems