Tier-based approaches for landslide susceptibility assessment in Europe

In the framework of the European Soil Thematic Strategy and the associated proposal of a Framework Directive on the protection and sustainable use of soil, landslides were recognised as a soil threat requiring specific strategies for priority area identification, spatial hazard assessment and management. This contribution outlines the general specifications for nested, Tier-based geographical landslide zonings at small spatial scales to identify priority areas susceptible to landslides (Tier 1) and to perform quantitative susceptibility evaluations within these (Tier 2). A heuristic, synoptic-scale Tier 1 assessment exploiting a reduced set of geoenvironmental factors derived from common pan-European data sources is proposed for the European Union and adjacent countries. Evaluation of the susceptibility estimate with national-level landslide inventory data suggests that a zonation of Europe according to, e.g. morphology and climate, and performing separate susceptibility assessments per zone could give more reliable results. To improve the Tier 1 assessment, a geomorphological terrain zoning and landslide typology differentiation are then applied for France. A multivariate landslide susceptibility assessment using additional information on landslide conditioning and triggering factors, together with a historical catalogue of landslides, is proposed for Tier 2 analysis. An approach is tested for priority areas in Italy using small administrative mapping units, allowing for relating socioeconomic census data with landslide susceptibility, which is mandatory for decision making regarding the adoption of landslide prevention and mitigation measures. The paper concludes with recommendations on further work to harmonise European landslide susceptibility assessments in the context of the European Soil Thematic Strategy.     

On predicting and improving the quality of Volunteer Geographic Information projects

Initiatives that rely upon the contributions of volunteers to reach a specific goal are growing more and more with the success of Web 2.0–interactive applications. Also scientific projects are testing and exploiting volunteers' collaboration, but the quality of information obtained with this approach is often puzzling. This paper offers a rich overview of many scientific projects where geographic contributions are committed to volunteers, to the aim of defining strategies to improve information quality. By describing real examples of Volunteer Geographic Information (VGI), the contribution establishes a categorization based on the characteristics of the information, tasks, and scopes of the projects. After a discussion on the relationships of categories and VGI quality, the paper analyses techniques to improve the quality of volunteered information according to the moment of its assessment (i.e., ex ante, ex post, or both with respect to information creation). The paper outlines the main limitations of the different approaches and indicates some guidelines for future developments.     

Late Pleistocene vertebrate-bearing deposits at San Teodoro Cave (North-Eastern Sicily): Preliminary data on faunal diversification and chronology

This paper deals with the chronology and the possible correlations among levels of different excavated areas in the Pleistocene vertebrate-bearing deposits at the large San Teodoro Cave (North-Eastern Sicily). Two trenches have been excavated along the eastern side of the cave, located at a distance from the entrance, respectively, of 8 m (α trench) and 28 m (β trench) and at different depths. Lithological features, biometrical data from small mammals and ecological data from molluscs point to similar environmental conditions for the α trench deposits and those located along the eastern wall of the cave in the eastern part of the β trench. The same evidence, and the taphonomic features of large mammals, points to different environmental conditions and perhaps to different ages for the deposits located in the western part of the β trench. The survival of elephants in Sicily up to 32,000 years ago is a new significant result of the ²³⁰Th/²³⁴U dating carried out from a concretionary stratum from the β trench and represents the youngest elephant survival in the western Mediterranean islands.     

Venomous snakes and climate change: ophidism as a dynamic problem

Snakebite envenoming is an important public health problem worldwide and addressing this issue has turned into a challenge for applied science. In this sense, the study of the distributional patterns of problematic snakes is central in terms of public health. Global Climate Change is affecting the distributional ranges of snakes, so that decisions regarding treatment of ophidism (poisoning by snake venom) may also change spatially and/or temporally. Here, we assessed suitable climate spaces at present conditions and estimated potential future changes in the distributions of the five southernmost venomous snakes, responsible for almost 99 % of accidents in Argentina, by implementing an ensemble of forecasts between different algorithms and scenarios for 2030 and 2080. Present suitable climate spaces showed high concordance with known distribution of the species. Future projections show moderate “north to south” displacements of the snakes’ suitable climate spaces, implying potential increments of suitable spaces in human populated areas in Argentina. Our results suggest the necessity of considering ophidism as a dynamic problem. In this regard, the analyses implemented here are useful tools in improving the assessment of snakebite envenoming in light of global climate change.     

Somma-Vesuvius’ activity: a mineral chemistry database

Mineralogy and Petrology - Clinopyroxene and olivine are ubiquitous phases in Somma-Vesuvius (SV) volcanics and for the first time they were systematically studied in several products younger than...     

The 12 May 1802 earthquake (N Italy) in its historical and seismological context

The Mw 5.7 earthquake that occurred on 12 May 1802 is the only one with Mw ≥ 5.5 located west of Lake Garda in the central-northern part of the Po Plain, Northern Italy, and the strongest event located in the seismic zone 907 of the ZS9 seismogenic zonation of Italy. Current parametric earthquake catalogs locate the event not far from important cities (e.g., Milan) and to sites where nuclear power plants were to be built in the 1980s or could be built in a near future. Although the earthquake parameters seemed sufficiently well constrained, a detailed investigation of documentary sources was performed, in repositories storing the documents of the Napoleonic departments to which the area affected by the earthquake belonged at that time. In the surviving archival series, we found the officers’ correspondence on all the administrative aspects raised by the earthquake. The newly collected records allowed the authors to significantly increase the number of macroseismic intensity data, including new observations in the most damaged area. The results have been then interpreted in terms of both Mercalli–Cancani–Sieberg and EMS98 macroseismic scales. The earthquake parameters were derived applying two different methods in order to get two independent estimates. Earthquake location is confirmed, although the still scarce data available in the area to the east of the epicenter do not permit to reduce the uncertainty to a minimum. According to the Boxer method, the magnitude is now slightly higher, and the source model shows a good agreement with the tectonic setting of the area.     

Macroseismic effects highlight site response in Rome and its geological signature

A detailed analysis of the earthquake effects on the urban area of Rome has been conducted for the L??Aquila sequence, which occurred in April 2009, by using an online macroseismic questionnaire. Intensity residuals calculated using the mainshock and four aftershocks are analyzed in light of a very accurate and original geological reconstruction of the subsoil of Rome based on a large amount of wells. The aim of this work is to highlight ground motion amplification areas and to find a correlation with the geological settings at a subregional scale, putting in evidence the extreme complexity of the phenomenon and the difficulty of making a simplified model. Correlations between amplification areas and both near-surface and deep geology were found. Moreover, the detailed scale of investigation has permitted us to find a correlation between seismic amplification in recent alluvial settings and subsiding zones, and between heard seismic sound and Tiber alluvial sediments.     

The influence of variable topography on the depositional behaviour of pyroclastic density currents: The examples of the Upper Pollara eruption (Salina Island,southern Italy)

Stratigraphic reconstruction of the Upper Pollara eruption has allowed for the inference of eruptive mechanisms and the distillation of a sedimentological model for pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) moving across variable topography. The pre-eruptive topography in the study area was characterised by a tuff ring-like morphology, with both inward and outward dipping slopes. Highly viscous, moderately porphyritic, dacitic to rhyolitic magmas fed the eruption, which was characterised by a Vulcanian eruptive style. The stratigraphic succession was divided into five eruption units (EUs), which result from different phases of the eruption separated by stases. Sustained columns occurred only during EU1, while PDC generation dominates EU2–5. Lithofacies analysis of the PDC deposits indicates the prevalence of massive coarse-grained deposits on the inner slopes of the Pollara crater, which are interpreted as the deposits of a flow-boundary zone dominated by granular flow or fluid escape regimes. Dune-bedded, massive to stratified lithofacies dominate the outer slopes of the Pollara crater, and are interpreted as the deposits of PDCs with flow-boundary zones in which traction played a major role. Thin, massive PDC deposits are exposed on the sub-horizontal Malfa terrace, and are interpreted as representative of flow-boundary zones dominated by a granular flow regime. The occurrence of stacked deposits indicates that most of the PDCs were characterised by unsteady pulsatory behaviour, with development of trains of pulses during their transport. The downcurrent lithofacies transitions observed for the Upper Pollara deposits have finally been compared with other similar lithofacies associations which have been described for short-lived PDCs at tuff rings, in order to discuss the influence of pre-eruptive topography on lithofacies association.     

Improved 2-D attenuation analysis for Northern Italy using a merged dataset from selected regional seismic networks

A merged, high-quality waveform dataset from different seismic networks has been used to improve our understanding of lateral seismic attenuation for Northern Italy. In a previous study on the same region, Morasca et al. (Bull Seismol Soc Am 98:1936–1946, 2008) were able to resolve only a small area due to limited data coverage. For this reason, the interpretation of the attenuation anomalies was difficult given the complexity of the region and the poor resolution of the available data. In order to better understand the lateral changes in the crustal structure and thickness of this region, we selected 770 earthquakes recorded by 54 stations for a total of almost 16,000 waveforms derived from seismic networks operating totally or partially in Northern Italy. Direct S-wave and coda attenuation images were obtained using an amplitude ratio technique that eliminates source terms from the formulation. Both direct and early-coda amplitudes are used as input for the inversions, and the results are compared. Results were obtained for various frequency bands ranging between 0.3 and 25.0 Hz and in all cases show significant improvement with respect to the previous study since the resolved area has been extended and more crossing paths have been used to image smaller scale anomalies. Quality-factor estimates are consistent with the regional tectonic structure exhibiting a general trend of low attenuation under the Po Plain basin and higher values for the Western Alps and Northern Apennines. The interpretation of the results for the Eastern Alps is not simple, possibly because our resolution for this area is still not adequate to resolve small-scale structures.     

Pairs of pulsars (PSR) and the origin of PSR

The results of research on pairs of PSR which were possibly components of disrupted binaries, seem to advance further arguments in favour of the idea, suggested by some authors, that most of PSR were formed in binary systems.