Fausto Guzzetti

Presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri · Dipartimento della Protezione Civile

Based on a minimum amount of rainfall that when reached or exceeded can trigger landslides, rainfall thresholds are used to predict potential landslide occurrence and are essential parts of many landslide early warning systems. Despite the extensive literature on the definition and use of rainfall thresholds, little attention has been given to exam...

A common and largely unresolved problem of national-scale landslide early warning systems is their independent evaluation. In a recent paper, Mondini et al. (Nat Commun 14:2466, 2023) proposed a deep-learning system for short-term forecasting of rain-induced shallow landslides in Italy. Here, we independently evaluate the performance of this nation...

Research that studies the relationship between city traffic and the ambient environment, is possible only when we earn the ability to generate high-resolution spatial and temporal road traffic delay data continuously. This study explores the practical utilization of open data to analyze and improve urban transportation systems, focusing on leveragi...

Significant effort has been devoted during the last few decades to the development of methodologies for landslide hazard and risk assessment. All of this work requires harmonization of the methodologies and terminology to facilitate communication within the landslide community, as well as with stakeholders and researchers from other disciplines. Cu...

We present a new method for earthquake-triggered rockfall scenario assessment adopting ground shaking estimates, produced in near real-time by a seismological monitoring network. Its key inputs are the locations of likely initiation points of rockfall trajectories, namely, rockfall sources, obtained by statistical analysis of digital topography. In...

Recent estimates suggest that landslides occur in about 17.1% of the landmasses, that about 8.2% of the global population live in landslide prone areas, and that population exposure to landslides is expected to increase. It is threfore not surprising that landslide early warning is gaining attention in the scientific and the technical literature, a...

Different approaches exist to describe the seismic triggering of rockfalls. Statistical approaches rely on the analysis of local terrain properties and their empirical correlation with observed rockfalls. Conversely , deterministic, or physically based approaches rely on the modeling of individual trajectories of boulders set in motion by seismic s...

Italy is frequently hit and damaged by landslides, resulting in substantial and widespread disruptions. In particular, slope failures have a high impact on the population, communication infrastructure, and economic and productive sectors. The hazard posed by landslides requires adequate responses for landslide risk mitigation, with special attentio...

Rainfall triggered landslides occur in all mountain ranges posing threats to people and the environment. Given the projected climate changes, the risk posed by landslides is expected to increase, and the ability to anticipate their occurrence is key for effective risk reduction. Empirical thresholds and physically-based models are used to anticipat...

Italy is frequently hit and damaged by landslides, resulting in substantial and widespread disruptions. In particular, slope failures have a high impact on the population, communication infrastructure and the economic and productive sectors. The hazard posed by landslides requires adequate responses for landslide risk mitigation, with special atten...

Digital map of slope units in Italy. This is a low resolution version of the map; the full resolution version - and different versions of the map, including a rich attribute table, can be downloaded at the main slope unit project page: https://geomorphology.irpi.cnr.it/tools/slope-units See also our latest preprint for an application of the map:...

Rainfall causes changes in surface and groundwater dynamics that reduce the slope stability conditions and cause landslides. Such phenomena pose serious threats to population and infrastructures. Hence, the prediction of the occurrence of rainfall-induced landslides is a key issue. Evaluation of the relationships between rainfall and landslides can...

We present Flood-SHE, a data-driven, statistically-based procedure for the delineation of areas expected to be inundated by river floods. We applied Flood-SHE in the 23 River Basin Authorities (RBAs) in Italy using information on the presence or absence of inundations obtained from existing flood zonings as the dependent variable, and six hydro-mor...

The standard definition of landslide hazard requires the estimation of where, when (or how frequently) and how large a given landslide event may be. The geoscientific community involved in statistical models has addressed the component pertaining to how large a landslide event may be by introducing the concept of landslide-event magnitude scale. Th...

Rockfalls pose a substantial threat to ground transportation, due to their rapidity, destructive potential and high probability of occurrence on steep topographies, often found along roads and railway routes. Approaches for the assessment of rockfall susceptibility range from purely phenomenological methods and statistical methods, suitable for mod...

At variance with conventional landslide susceptibility assessment, non-susceptibility analysis aims at selecting locations in which the likelihood of landslide occurrence is null or negligible. The advantage of this approach is that it does not require estimating different degrees of likelihood outside of the locations of negligible susceptibility....

Rockfalls pose a substantial threat to ground transportation, due to their rapidity, destructive potential and high probability of occurrence on steep topographies, often found along roads and railway routes. Various factors trigger rockfalls, including rainfall and seismic activity, and diverse phenomena affect their probability of occurrence. App...

Landslides are geomorphological processes that shape the landscapes of all continents, dismantling mountains and contributing sediments to the river networks. Caused by geophysical and meteorological triggers, including intense or prolonged rainfall, seismic shaking, volcanic activity, and rapid snow melting, landslides pose a serious threat to peo...

Geo-hydrological risk reduction is a key issue for local governments in Italy. In this context, a collaboration was undertaken between multiple actors in the La Spezia municipality aimed at: (i) monitoring building characteristics, using specific and valuable indicators, and (ii) increasing the knowledge of geo-hydrological hazards across residents...

The standard definition of landslide hazard requires the estimation of where, when (or how frequently) and how large a given landslide event may be. The geomorphological community involved in statistical models has addressed the component pertaining to how large a landslide event may be by introducing the concept of landslide-event magnitude scale....

The general assumptions and the most popular methods used to assess landslide hazard and for risk evaluation have not changed significantly in recent decades. Some of these assumptions have conceptual weakness, and the methods have revealed limitations. In this work, I deal with populations of landslides i.e. numerous landslides caused in an area b...

“From mapping to hazard and risk zonation” is Volume 2 of the book “Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk”. The volume collects 54 articles covering five main general topics, including (i) landslide detection, recognition and mapping, (ii) landslide susceptibility assessment and spatial landslide modelling, (iii) landslide size statist...

Landslides are frequent and destructive geo-hydrological events that cause harm to people every year worldwide. We used a catalogue on 1039 landslide fatalities, occurred in Italy in the 50-year period 1970–2019, to determine the dependence of the fatalities on gender, age and circumstance of death. The updated version of the Italian landslide fata...

This book is a part of ICL new book series “ICL Contribution to Landslide Disaster Risk Reduction” founded in 2019. Peer-reviewed papers submitted to the Fifth World Landslide Forum were published in six volumes of this book series. This book contains the followings: • Keynotes • Landslide detection, recognition and mapping • Landslide susceptibili...

The variability of landslide phenomena in terms of types, velocity and size, makes it difficult to establish a unique methodology for the definition of landslide susceptibility, with different approaches proposed in the literature for the prediction of landslide occurrence. In addition, the extent of the study area and the characteristics of the av...

Although mass-movements can be caused by a variety of natural phenomena and human actions, in most areas of the world rainfall is their primary trigger. An often-neglected complication of the operational forecasting of rainfall-induced landslides is global warming, in particular the related ongoing and expected changes in rainfall and temperature....

An accurate understanding of physical and socio-economic effects of landslides is fundamental to develop more refined risk management, mitigation strategies and land use policies. In this paper we develop a measure to consider the interconnection between physical and economic exposure, i.e. what we call the economic landslide susceptibility, namely...

Landslides are nearly ubiquitous phenomena and pose severe threats to people, properties, and the environment in many areas. Investigators have for long attempted to estimate landslide hazard in an effort to determine where, when (or how frequently), and how large (or how destructive) landslides are expected to be in an area. This information may p...

The 2016 Central Italy seismic sequence was characterized by two main events: 24 August, Mw 6, and 30 October, Mw 6.5. We carried out high-resolution field sampling and DInSAR analysis of the coseismic and intra-sequence ground deformations along the Mt Vettore-Mt Bove causative fault (VBF). We found that during the intra-sequence period (24 August...

Landslides often happen where they have already occurred in the past. The potential of landslides to reduce or enhance conditions for further landsliding has long been recognized and has often been reported, but the mechanisms and spatial and temporal scales of these processes have previously received little specific attention. Despite a prepondera...

Starting on 24th August 2016, Central Italy was struck by a six-month earthquake sequence that caused 303 victims and extensive major damages to urban areas and infrastructures, in some cases entire villages needed complete rebuilding. In this paper we present a map that portrays the overall susceptibility to multiple landslide types and the exposu...

Rockfall frequency size distributions are used in Austria for the definition of a design block for the planning of technical rockfall protection. Rockfall size datasets are often incomplete. Here, we study fifteen catalogues of rockfall size in Austria, Italy, and the USA to analyse the impact of the data collection and mapping methods on the repre...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Basilicata (BAS), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained using th...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Campania (CAM), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained using the...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Piemonte (Piedimont, PIE), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Lombardia (Lombardy, LOM), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Sardegna (Sardinia, SAR), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Umbria (UMB), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained using the so...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Toscana (Tuscany, TOS), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained us...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Friuli-Venezia Giulia (FVG), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtain...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Liguria (LIG), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained using the s...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Abruzzo (ABR), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained using the s...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Valle d'Aosta (Aosta Valley, VAO), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Emilia-Romagna (EMR), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained usin...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Lazio (Latium LAZ), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained using...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Puglia (Apulia, PUG), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained usin...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Calabria (CAL), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained using the...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Marche (MAR), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained using the so...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Molise (MOL), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained using the so...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Sicilia (Sicily, SIC), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained usi...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Trentino-Alto Adige (TAA), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained...

Shapefile containing the slope unit map for the Regione Veneto (VEN), Italy. Map is ETRS89/ETRS-LAEA projection, EPSG:3035. Development of this map, in conjunction with corresponding maps for the remaining 19 administrative regions (Regioni) in Italy, is described in: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107124 and it was obtained using the so...

Quantitative geomorphological and environmental analysis requires the adoption of well–defined spatial domains as basic mapping units. They provide local boundaries to aggregate environmental and morphometric variables and to perform calculations, thus they identify the spatial scale of the analysis. Grid cells, typically aligned with a digital ele...

The WLF5 organizing committee called for a preliminary registration of speakers for the WLF5. A total of 609 speakers from 63 countries/regions have completed the preliminary registration form on the WLF5 web, http://wlf5.iplhq.org/speaker-registration/ as of 1 January 2020.

This contribution tests the added value of including landslide path dependency in statistically based landslide susceptibility modelling. A conventional pixel-based landslide susceptibility model was compared with a model that includes landslide path dependency and with a purely path-dependent landslide susceptibility model. To quantify path depend...

Landslides are nearly ubiquitous phenomena and pose severe threats to people, properties, and the environment. Investigators have for long attempted to estimate landslide hazard to determine where, when, and how destructive landslides are expected to be in an area. This information is useful to design landslide mitigation strategies, and to reduce...

The design, implementation, management, and verification of landslide early warning systems (LEWSs) are gaining increasing attention in the literature and among government officials, decision makers, and the public. Based on a critical analysis of nine main assumptions that form the rationale for landslide forecasting and early warning, we examine...

Poster presented at "“Il tempo del pianeta Terra e il tempo dell'uomo: Le geoscienze fra passato e futuro”, 16-19 September 2019, Parma, Italy. http://parma2019.socminpet.it

This contribution tests the added value of including landslide path dependency in statistically-based landslide susceptibility modelling. A conventional pixel-based landslide susceptibility model was compared with a model that includes landslide path dependency, and with a purely path dependent landslide susceptibility model. To quantify path depen...

In this report, we summarise the activities of the Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection (IRPI, http://www.irpi.cnr.it/en/), of the Italian National Research Council (CNR, http://www.cnr.it/en/), as a World Centre of Excellence (WCoE) on Landslide Risk, of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL, http://iplhq.org). The report is...

We propose a novel approach to evaluate the spatial and the temporal distribution of societal landslide risk from historical, sparse, point information on fatal landslides and their direct human consequences. We test the approach using a record of 5571 fatalities caused by 1017 landslides at 958 sites across Italy, in the 155-year period 1861–2015....

The use of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPASs) in geosciences is often aimed at the acquisition of an image sequence to produce digital models and orthophotographs of the topographic surface. The technology can be applied for rockfall hazard and risk assessment. To study rockfalls, an approach consists in the application of numerical models f...

Landslide inventory maps are commonly prepared through the visual interpretation of stereoscopic aerial photographs and field checks. Stereoscopic satellite images can also be interpreted visually to recognize and map landslides. When interpreting stereoscopic imagery, shadows can conceal the photographic elements typical of landslides, hampering t...

In recent decades, the Entella River basin, in the Liguria Apennines, northern Italy, was hit by numerous intense rainfall events that triggered shallow landslides and earth flows, causing casualties and extensive damage. We analyzed landslide information obtained from different sources and rainfall data recorded in the period 2002–2016 by rain gau...

This paper presents a new methodology to systematically quantify the shape of landslides by their ellipticity (eL) and length‐to‐width ratio (ΛL), along with variability in these measures over different geomorphic settings. Two large substantially complete triggered‐event landslide inventories (source area and runout) are used: (i) 11,111 earthquak...

Slope units are portions of terrain, defined by the general requirement of maximizing homogeneity within a single unit and heterogeneity between different ones. Slope units are being used to describe a variety of processes and to assess different natural hazards. An unambiguous and reproducible definition of slope units based on quantitative hydrol...

Slope units are portions of terrain, defined by the general requirement of maximizing homogeneity within a single unit and heterogeneity between different ones. Slope units are being used to describe a variety of processes and to assess different natural hazards. An unambiguous and reproducible definition of slope units based on quantitative hydrol...

The use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPASs) in geosciences is often aimed at the acquisition of an image sequence to produce digital models and orthophotographs of the topographic surface. The technology can be applied for rockfall hazard and risk assessment. To study rockfalls, an approach consists in the application of numerical models f...

The relation between climate change and its potential effects on the stability of slopes remains an open issue. For rainfall induced landslides, the point consists in determining the effects of the projected changes in the duration and amounts of rainfall that can initiate slope failures. We investigated the relationship between fine-scale climate...