Skip to main content

BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Quaternary Science, Geomorphology and Paleoenvironment
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2024.1536277

Using ERA-5 LAND Reanalysis Rainfall Data to Better Evaluate the Performance of the Regional Shallow Landslide Early Warning System of Piemonte (North-western Italy) in the Context of Climate Change

Provisionally accepted
Valentina Botto Valentina Botto Davide Tiranti Davide Tiranti *Simona Barbarino Simona Barbarino Christian Ronchi Christian Ronchi
  • Department of Natural and Environmental Risks, Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione Ambientale del Piemonte (Arpa Piemonte), Turin, Torino, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    To correctly understand how and whether climate change has influenced the behavior of shallow landslide events over the last century, it is essential to carefully identify the historical series of phenomena and their respective triggering causes, as well as to accurately select the most appropriate analytical tools to minimize the degree of uncertainty in statistically correlating causes and effects. Shallow landslide events occurring from 1960 to 2023 in Piemonte (NW Italy) are considered, for which the primary triggering cause is represented by rainfall events, with a negligible contribution from antecedent precipitations. This paper is an update of a previous study, adding to the analysis recent widespread landslide events covering a wider time range with new precipitation data (additional 4 years). The primary difference lies in the use of a different method to analyze the rainfall responsible for the occurrence of shallow landslides. In particular, the results obtained for 24 and 48h rainfall durations, when compared with the triggering thresholds of the R-SLEWS (previously employed the OI Method), are verified using new and more flexible method for reconstructing triggering rainfall based on ERA5-Land hourly precipitation data. The new approach moderately improves the identification of actual triggering rainfall over 24h but is less performant when it comes to identifying triggering shallow landslides over 48h. Where no significant improvements in the detection of rainfall-inducing shallow landslide events are obtained, the method can still be effectively used in areas with a sparser rain gauge network, which can rely less on observed precipitation data.

    Keywords: Landslide event, Global Warming, Rainfall threshold, Copernicus services, Hilly environment, ALPS

    Received: 28 Nov 2024; Accepted: 18 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Botto, Tiranti, Barbarino and Ronchi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Davide Tiranti, Department of Natural and Environmental Risks, Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione Ambientale del Piemonte (Arpa Piemonte), Turin, 10135, Torino, Italy

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.