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Landslide hazard assessment in Vrancea seismic region (Curvature Carpathians of Romania): achievements and perspectives
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, First EAGE Workshop on Assessment of Landslide and Debris Flows Hazards in the Carpathians, Jun 2019, Volume 2019, p.1 - 5
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Abstract
The Carpathians are the largest and the longest segment of the European Alpine system, while the Romanian sector represents the longest one (910 km, 54% of the total length and 40% of their total surface). The Romanian Carpathians may be ranked as mid-altitude mountains (90% below 1500 m), exceeding 2500 m only in the southern sector (maximum 2544 m). The landslides are representing the main present-day geomorphic process especially in the Eastern sector (loose formations of Palaeogene flysch are affected by a wide range of such processes). The Curvature sector (Vrancea seismic region), shows an increased landslide activity enhanced by the intermediate-depth seismicity. The mountainous flysch sector is characterized by the existence of large landslides, with a low frequency-high magnitude pattern and numerous reactivation sectors. The hilly molasse area is featuring very frequent but low magnitude landslides, forming large complex areas in which they associate with erosion processes, especially in form of sheet wash, rills and rarely gullies. There are two main triggers for the wide variety of landslides (single or multiple events): precipitation and earthquakes. Based on multiple (some typologically-different) inventories, different (climate-triggered) landslide susceptibility assessments have been performed, implying qualitative (geomorphic mapping), semi-quantitative (weighted overlay, spatial multi-criteria evaluation) and quantitative (logistic regression) assessments. The evaluation of earthquake-induced landslide susceptibility was performed following the Newmark Displacement approach. Changes in the triggering factors (and hazard zonation) have been evaluated based on future climate projections derived from the CORDEX project (WCRP) using the 2.6, 4.5. and 8.5 RCPs. All the results show that presently Vrancea seismic region fatures a high potential for developing complementary approaches which may be extended at the level of the entire Carpathian chain: fast mapping based on EO data, uncertainties analysis and quantification, landslide forecast, multi-hazard analysis and single to multi-risk assessment.