Landslides are one of the most widespread geohazards in Europe, producing significant social and economic impacts. Rapid population growth in urban areas throughout many countries in Europe and extreme climatic scenarios can considerably increase landslide risk in the near future. Variability exists between European countries in both the statutory treatment of landslide risk and the use of official assessment guidelines. This suggests that a European Landslides Directive that provides a common legal framework for dealing with landslides is necessary. With this long-term goal in mind, this work analyzes the landslide databases from the Geological Surveys of Europe focusing on their interoperability and completeness. The same landslide classification could be used for the 849,543 landslide records from the Geological Surveys, from which 36% are slides, 10% are falls, 20% are flows, 11% are complex slides, and 24% either remain unclassified or correspond to another typology. Most of them are mapped with the same symbol at a scale of 1:25,000 or greater, providing the necessary information to elaborate European-scale susceptibility maps for each landslide type. A landslide density map was produced for the available records from the Geological Surveys (LANDEN map) showing, for the first time, 210,544km 2 landslide-prone areas and 23,681 administrative areas where the Geological Surveys from Europe have recorded landslides. The comparison of this map with the European landslide susceptibility map (ELSUS 1000 v1) is successful for most of the territory (69.7%) showing certain variability between countries. This comparison also permitted the identification of 0.98Mkm 2 (28.9%) of landslide-susceptible areas without records from the Geological Surveys, which have been used to evaluate the landslide database completeness. The estimated completeness of the landslide databases (LDBs) from the Geological Surveys is 17%, varying between 1 and 55%. This variability is due to the different landslide strategies adopted by each country. In some of them, landslide mapping is systematic; others only record damaging landslides, whereas in others, landslide maps are only available for certain regions or local areas. Moreover, in most of the countries, LDBs from the Geological Surveys co-exist with others owned by a variety of public institutions producing LDBs at variable scales and formats. Hence, a greater coordination effort should be made by all the institutions working in landslide mapping to increase data integration and harmonization.
Montserrat Mountain is located near Barcelona in Catalonia, in the northeast of Spain, and its massif is formed by conglomerate interleaved by siltstone/sandstone with steep slopes very prone to rockfalls. The increasing number of visitors in the monastery area, reaching 2.4 million per year, has highlighted the risk derived from rockfalls for this building area and also for the terrestrial accesses, both roads and the rack railway. A risk mitigation plan has been launched, and its first phase during 2014-2016 has been focused largely on testing several monitoring techniques for their later implementation. The results of the pilot tests, performed as a development from previous sparse experiences and data, are presented together with the first insights obtained. These tests combine four monitoring techniques under different conditions of continuity in space and time domains, which are: displacement monitoring with Ground-based Synthetic Aperture Radar and characterization at slope scale, with an extremely non-uniform atmospheric phase screen due to the stepped topography and atmosphere stratification; Terrestrial Laser Scanner surveys quantifying the frequency of small or even previously unnoticed rockfalls, and monitoring rock block centimetre scale displacements; the monitoring of rock joints implemented through a wireless sensor network with an ad hoc design of ZigBee loggers developed by ICGC; and, finally, monitoring singular rock needles with Total Station.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
The paper presents a multi-source approach tailored for the analysis of ground movements affecting the village of Barberà de la Conca (Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain), where cracks on the ground and damage of different severity to structures and infrastructure was recorded. For this purpose, monitoring of ground displacements performed by topographic survey, geotechnical monitoring and remote sensing techniques (ground-based synthetic aperture radar, GBSAR) are combined with multi-temporal damage surveys and monitoring of cracks (crackmeters) to get an insight into the kinematics of the urban slope. The obtained results highlight the correspondence between the monitoring data and the effects on the exposed facilities induced by ground displacements, which seem to occur predominantly in the horizontal plane with diverging directions (northward and southward) from the main ground fracture crossing the centre of the village. The case study stands as a further contribution to fostering this kind of integrated approaches that via cross-validations can improve data reliability as well as enrich datasets for slope instability recognition and analysis, which are crucial to plan risk mitigation works.
Co-financed by the Interreg V Program in Spain-France-Andorra (POCTEFA) the European project MOMPA (MOnitoring of ground Movements and Action Protocol) study the landslide hazard in the Eastern Pyrenees. It groups together scientific partners from CTTC (Telecommunications Centre of Catalonia), ICGC (Cartographical and Geological Institute of Catalunya) IEA (Andorran Research Institute), and Cerema (Centre for studies and expertise on risks, the environment, mobility, and development). This cross-border project provides the expertise of four partners, which are specialized in remote sensing and techniques of risk analysis and management. More specifically, the goal of this project is to improve risk management by evolving from a “reactive” approach to a “proactive” one that is rarely used today because of its financial cost. To identify movements, the technique of interferometric SAR (InSAR) based on satellite images is used. This technique is sensitive to very small ground deformations and allows early detection of movements.
El objetivo del proyecto POCTEFA - MOMPA (MOnitorización de Movimientos del terreno y Protocolo de Actuación) esproporcionar una herramienta técnico-operativa útil para la prevención y la gestión de los riesgos ocasionados pormovimientos de ladera, a nivel transfronterizo, basada en la técnica de seguimiento satelital InSAR. (Interferometría Radara Apertura Sintética) La herramienta incluye dos elementos principales: la evaluación del riesgo; y la integración de latécnica en un protocolo de actuación para las administraciones encargadas de la Protección Civil. El área de estudio cubrealrededor de 4.000 km2 e incluye una parte de los Pirineos orientales, incluyendo los países España, Francia y Andorra.El proyecto trata la evaluación de riesgos a partir del mapa de movimientos del terreno a escala interregional y de lasÁreas de Deformación Activa (ADA), para seleccionar movimientos con riesgo potencial donde luego se enfocará en unanálisis a escala local mediante el uso de métodos tradicionales (básicamente fotointerpretación y trabajo de campo). Seutilizan tanto los datos libres y gratuitos de resolución media, adquiridos por el satélite Sentinel-1, como los datos de altaresolución adquiridos por COSMO-SkyMed. Además, el proyecto centra su atención en el caso particular del deslizamientode “la Portalada” (Andorra) ocurrido en 2019. En la actualidad, la ladera presenta un movimiento lento que podría afectarel eje principal de comunicación entre Andorra y España ubicado en el fondo del valle. El Gobierno de Andorra estáimplementando medidas para monitorear y caracterizar el movimiento actual de la ladera. Por tanto, nueve reflectoresartificiales se instalaron a lo largo de esta ladera ocupada por un bosque. Los datos obtenidos se integrarán en el protocolode prevención de riesgos. En este trabajo se presentan el proyecto y los primeros resultados obtenidos medianteinterferometría satelital.
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