On December 13, Stefan Steger presented the data-driven landslide modelling results of Proslide within the Trans-Alp conference at Eurac HQ to researchers and Local and Regional authorities involved in Civil Protection. It was shown how the dynamic landslide prediction modelfrom Proslide can be coupled with dynamic exposure estimates from TransAlp to move towards an impact-oriented natural hazard early warning.

The TRANS-ALP project has been implemented by a consortium of environmental, meteo-hydrological and earth observations institutes from Austria and Italy, with the purpose of better understanding the threats related to extreme events at cross-border scale and elaborating new methodologies to improve the impact forecasting of extreme events in the mountain areas. The project is drawing to its conclusion and the partnership wanted to organise a final conference to sharing and discussing future perspectives with experts and stakeholders.

More infos on the event can be found here:

International Conference

On November 15th, Mateo Moreno gave an overview of some of the research findings within the PROSLIDE project. The presentation was entitled Space-time modeling of precipitation-induced shallow landslides in South Tyrol, Italy and it was presented during a series of seminars at the Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC),  University of Twente.

As it was announced in previous days, we glady had the chance to share with the scientific community at the 10th International Conference of the International Association of Geomorphologists (IAG) two contributions on the frame of the PROSLDIE project.

Stefan Steger gave an oral presentation on Applying a hierarchical Generalized Additive Model to integrate predisposing, preparatory and triggering factors for landslide prediction (session ICG2022-19 – Geomorphological hazards and risk management) –> see more

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Mateo Moreno presented a poster on Comparing different strategies to incorporate the effectively surveyed area into landslide susceptibility modeling (session ICG2022-19 – Geomorphological hazards and risk management) –> see more

Find out more details at the meeting programme CO Meeting Organizer ICG2022 (copernicus.org)

In the first and second week of September, Lotte de Vugt took part in both the IMC conference and the related Student4Students Summerschool.

At the IMC she presented her work on the spatial transferability analysis of the model TRIGRS, where the calibration of TRIGRS for the Passeier valley was compared to calibration of TRIGRS from an existing study located in Vorarlberg, Austria. The abstract of the talk can be found here: https://www.imc2022.info/sessions/id12-climate-change-impacts-on-alpine-mass-movements#1652042458449-lew7qqag-2u34

The IMC S4SS Summer school 2022 is a summer school that is organized leading up to the IMC conference and is unique due to the fact that it is organized by PhD students. Lotte de Vugt was also part of the organizing team and together with several colleagues organized several sessions on the topic of landslides. More information can be found here: https://www.imc2022.info/summerschool/portfolio/focus-group-natural-hazards/

Figure: Presentation calibration physically-based modelling, IMC

Figure: Landslide inventory session, S4SS

On the 1st of September, at the Eurac Research headquarters, we hosted the extended partner meeting for the PROSLIDE project with representatives from partner and associated partner institutions. The event had the goal of providing an overview of the recent progress developed within the project, offering room for discussion on improvement options and perspectives on the upcoming project stages.

The full-day meeting was carried out in blocks of presentations mainly divided into the regional-scale and catchment-scale results. For the first one, the presented content covered the landslide inventory preparation, rainfall thresholds and prediction surfaces, pixel-based and slope unit-based dynamic modeling of shallow landslide occurrence. The second part covered the study site selection, fieldwork and laboratory analyses, and the physically-based slope stability modeling. The meeting also included presentation blocks in which the plans for the project’s final phase were shared and discussed with the audience.

In the last part of the day, CNR-IRPI gave two presentations on empirical rainfall thresholds for landslide initiation and the Italian (national and regional) Landslide Early Warning System. Lastly, CNR-ISAC presented the RADAR precipitation estimation for debris flow occurrence in South Tyrol.

We thank all our attendees for the very interesting contributions and lively discussions.

This year, we will also participate in the 10th International Conference of the International Association of Geomorphologists (IAG). Two of our contributions in the frame of PROSLIDE were accepted in the format of a 15-min oral presentation and a poster entitled as follows:

Applying a hierarchical Generalized Additive Model to integrate predisposing, preparatory and triggering factors for landslide prediction (session ICG2022-19 – Geomorphological hazards and risk management)  scheduled for Monday, Sep 12th at 18:00 (GMT+1). Please find the abstract here.

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Comparing different strategies to incorporate the effectively surveyed area into landslide susceptibility modeling (session ICG2022-19 – Geomorphological hazards and risk management) scheduled for Tuesday, Sep 13th at 16:45 (GMT+1). Please find the abstract here.

Find out more details at the meeting programme CO Meeting Organizer ICG2022 (copernicus.org)

This year, we are happy to participate in the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2022. We were accepted for two PROSLIDE contributions in the format of 7-min short oral presentations entitled as follows:

A data-driven approach to establish prediction surfaces for rainfall-induced shallow landslides in South Tyrol, Italy (session NH3.7 – Towards reliable landslide early warning systems)  scheduled for Wednesday, May 25th at 14:25 CEST. Please find the abstract here.

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Space-time modeling of rainfall-induced shallow landslides in South Tyrol, Italy (session NH3.6 – Space and time forecasting of landslides) scheduled for Tuesday, May 24th at 13:27 CEST. Please find the abstract here.

For more details about the conference program visit CO Meeting Organizer EGU22 (copernicus.org).

On December the 10^th, Lotte de Vugt presented her thesis concept and her work on the PROSLIDE project as part of an application colloquium to the Innsbruck Doctoral College (IDC) Natural Hazards in Mountain Regions. The presentation was titled “Improving physically-based shallow landslide modelling – a case study in the Passeier valley, South Tyrol” and discussed the first results from the fieldwork, inventory mapping and the first model runs of the physically-based assessment in the Passeier valley.

The IDC Natural Hazards in Mountain Regions provides an interdisciplinary environment for PhD students from Innsbruck to further develop their academic and soft skills.

https://www.uibk.ac.at/en/alpinerraum/idcs/dp-mountainhazards/

Last Friday, November 5th,  Stefan Steger presented analyses related to the PROSLIDE project to the international landslide research community at the World Landslide Forum 5 WLF5 | World Lanslide Forum 5 (iplhq.org). He presented A statistical exploratory analysis of inventoried movements for South Tyrol (Italy) as part of  the Theme 2: Hazard and vulnerability mapping and zonation.

Screenshot of the presentation.

The past Friday, October 8th, fieldwork activities were carried out in the Passeier Valley. Like in the previous two field trips (First field trip – June 17th and Field trip campaign July 26th – 30th), the primary goals were to take soil samples and execute the DCPT (Dynamic Cone Penetration Test) to determine hydrological and geotechnical soil properties. This time there was no need for digging a soil pit, as the soil samples could be taken from a large old landslide scarp. According to the owner of the field, this landslide occurred due to an earthquake around 2000.  However, by checking the USGS database of past earthquakes, it was found that the landslide likely correlates to a relatively large earthquake that occurred on July 17^th of 2001, with a magnitude of 4.7 and its epicenter in the middle of the Passeier Valley (https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/quake-info/4826702/mag4quake-Jul-17-2001-northern-Italy.html)