Assessment of physical vulnerability and potential losses of buildings due to shallow slides

Abstract Physical vulnerability (PV) of buildings and associated potential losses (PLs) due to the occurrence of shallow slides are semi-quantitatively assessed at the regional scale in a municipality located in the North of Portugal. This work has four main purposes: (1) to identify and characterize the built environment exposed to shallow slides in the study area; (2) to assess the PV of each building type taking into account the building resistance (BR) and the landslide magnitude (LM); (3) to evaluate the economic value (EV) of each single exposed building using cadastral and market values; and (4) to estimate PLs on buildings due to landslide activity. The analysis is made for each single building of the study area, and this is an innovative contribution of this work. The semi-quantitative methodology to assess PV of buildings exposed to shallow translational slides combines the LM and the BR, which is empirically obtained weighting a set of parameters related to building characteristics. The quantification of the EV of buildings was carried out using an adaptation of the calculation formula used by the Portuguese Tax Services to determine the taxable value of buildings in Portugal. PLs result from the product between PV of the exposed buildings and their EV in euros. The overlapping of PLs of buildings with an available landslide susceptibility map, although does not provides any quantified risk analysis, provides valuable information to be used by spatial planning and civil protection stakeholders.

[1]  Thomas Glade,et al.  Quantitative risk analysis for landslides ‒ Examples from Bíldudalur, NW-Iceland , 2004 .

[2]  Frédéric Leone,et al.  Concept de vulnérabilité appliqué à l'évaluation des risques générés par les phénomènes de mouvements de terrain , 1996 .

[3]  D. Dominey-Howes,et al.  Elements at risk as a framework for assessing the vulnerability of communities to landslides , 2007 .

[4]  Suzanne Lacasse,et al.  A conceptual framework for quantitative estimation of physical vulnerability to landslides , 2008 .

[5]  T. Glade,et al.  Physical vulnerability assessment for alpine hazards: state of the art and future needs , 2011 .

[6]  J. Zêzere,et al.  Technical Note: Assessing predictive capacity and conditional independence of landslide predisposing factors for shallow landslide susceptibility models , 2012 .

[7]  José Luís Zêzere,et al.  Probabilistic landslide risk analysis considering direct costs in the area north of Lisbon (Portugal) , 2008 .

[8]  David Alexander,et al.  Confronting Catastrophe: New Perspectives on Natural Disasters , 2000 .

[9]  Garth Powell,et al.  Discussion 'Landslide Risk Management Concepts and Guidelines' , 2002 .

[10]  O. Hungr,et al.  Landslide Risk Management , 2005 .

[11]  D. Varnes,et al.  Landslide types and processes , 2004 .

[12]  K. Yin,et al.  Statistical prediction model for slope instability of metamorphosed rocks , 1988 .

[13]  D. Alexander.  Vulnerability to landslides. , 2012 .

[14]  David M. Cruden,et al.  LANDSLIDE TYPES AND PROCESSES , 1958 .

[15]  R. Fell.  Landslide risk assessment and acceptable risk , 1994 .

[16]  J. Hübl,et al.  Towards an empirical vulnerability function for use in debris flow risk assessment , 2007 .

[17]  Juan Remondo,et al.  Quantitative landslide risk assessment and mapping on the basis of recent occurrences , 2008 .

[18]  F. Guzzetti,et al.  Landslide hazard, vulnerability and risk assessment: methods, limits and challenges (Invited) , 2010 .

[19]  Joern Birkmann,et al.  Measuring the unmeasurable: the challenge of vulnerability , 2006 .

[20]  Ortwin Renn,et al.  SIXTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME , 2007 .

[21]  M. Anderson,et al.  Landslide hazard and risk , 2005 .

[22]  Fausto Guzzetti,et al.  Landslide Vulnerability Criteria: A Case Study from Umbria, Central Italy , 2007, Environmental management.

[23]  W. L. Shirley,et al.  Social Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards , 2003 .

[24]  Fausto Guzzetti,et al.  A geomorphological approach to the estimation of landslide hazards and risks in Umbria, Central Italy , 2002 .

[25]  T. Glade,et al.  Improvement of vulnerability curves using data from extreme events: debris flow event in South Tyrol , 2012, Natural Hazards.

[26]  P. Buckle.  New Approaches to Assessing Vulnerability and Resilience , 2000 .

[27]  David Alexander.  Landslide damage to buildings , 1986 .

[28]  D. Varnes.  Landslide hazard zonation: A review of principles and practice , 1984 .

[29]  Pitilakis Kyriazis,et al.  Systemic Seismic Vulnerability and Risk Analysis for Buildings, Lifeline Networks and Infrastructures Safety Gain. SYNER-G Synthetic Document , 2013 .

[30]  S. Cutter.  Vulnerability to environmental hazards , 1996 .

[31]  Juan Remondo,et al.  Landslide Risk Models for Decision Making , 2009, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[32]  David M. Cruden,et al.  LANDSLIDES: INVESTIGATION AND MITIGATION. CHAPTER 3 - LANDSLIDE TYPES AND PROCESSES , 1996 .

[33]  Marion Michael-Leiba,et al.  Regional landslide risk to the Cairns community , 2003 .

[34]  Simone Frigerio,et al.  Landslide risk analysis: a multi-disciplinary methodological approach , 2007 .