Reconstruction of long-term earth-flow activity using a hydroclimatological model

This study presents a new proxy for the reconstruction of the historical activity of large earth flows. A simple relationship between rainfall, temperature and groundwater levels was established using available monthly time series and subsequently utilized to develop the Landslide Hydrological Climatological (LHC) indicator to simulate the effects of hydroclimatic influence on slope stability for the Montaguto earth flow in Southern Italy. In order to identify phases of earth-flow activity, an empirical threshold was assigned. Our result indicates a different response of the earth flow to hydroclimatic stress with both ordinary and extraordinary reactivations over the historic period. Additional information suggests that earth-flow reactivations are clustered in the spring and an extraordinary earth-flow activity follows periods with a LHC below the average. A modeling result shows that the LHC is able to realistically reconstruct the long-term activity of a complex earth flow with only a few false-positives in a very long period of application. Thus, it can be considered as a tool for long-term earth-flow activity reconstruction and assessment. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015