CORDIS provides links to public deliverables and publications of HORIZON projects.
Links to deliverables and publications from FP7 projects, as well as links to some specific result types such as dataset and software, are dynamically retrieved from OpenAIRE .
Exploitable results
Giant landslides with volumes of nearly a cubic kilometre or more occur every few decades, usually in young mountainous areas (such as the Alps, Himalayas and Andes) or at young volcanoes. When they fail, a whole mountainside can shift several kilometres within minutes, placing such events among the most powerful natural hazards on Earth. Continuing problems have been to understand why such landslides can travel great distances, and to recognise when such a major collapse is imminent.
A new model that treats giant landslides as collections of mobile fragments is uniquely able to relate the distance travelled by a landslide to the volume of the displaced rock. Such a link is insdispensible for hazard analyses, because the volume involved is one feature which can be estimated from deformation studies of an unstable slope. Observed rates at which major failure is approached are consistent with slow rock fracturing. If this control is verified, then the nature of the cracking mechanism places an upper limit of days, possibly weeks, for issuing a reliable forecast and for initiating emergency procedures without the prospect of calling a false alarm.
The results are being integrated into a dedicated GIS for improving emergency responses to landslide hazard, and for designing land-management strategies for reducing medium- and long-term risk. Pilot alert networks and public-awareness schemes will be implemented in selected areas as a basis for more comprehensive national and international programmes.
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