Potential future exposure of European land transport infrastructure to rainfall-induced landslides throughout the 21st century
In the face of climate change, the assessment of land transport infrastructure exposure towards adverse climate events is of major importance for Europe's economic prosperity and social wellbeing. In this study, a climate index estimating rainfall patterns which trigger landslides in centra...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2018-04-01
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| Series: | Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences |
| Online Access: | https://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/18/1121/2018/nhess-18-1121-2018.pdf |
| Summary: | In the face of climate change, the assessment of land
transport infrastructure exposure towards adverse climate events is of
major importance for Europe's economic prosperity and social wellbeing.
In this study, a climate index estimating rainfall patterns which
trigger landslides in central Europe is analysed until the end of this
century and compared to present-day conditions. The analysis of the potential
future development of landslide risk is based on an ensemble of dynamically downscaled
climate projections which are driven by the SRES A1B socio-economic
scenario. Resulting regional-scale climate change projections across
central Europe are concatenated with Europe's road and railway network.
Results indicate overall increases of landslide occurrence. While flat
terrain at low altitudes exhibits an increase of about 1 more potentially
landslide-inducing rainfall period per year until the end of this century,
higher elevated regions are more affected and show increases of up to 14
additional periods. This general spatial distribution emerges in the near
future (2021–2050) but becomes more pronounced in the remote future (2071–2100).
Since largest increases are to be found in Alsace, potential impacts of
an increasing amount of landslides are discussed using the example of a case
study covering the Black Forest mountain range in Baden-Württemberg
by further enriching the climate information with additional geodata.
The findings derived are suitable to support political decision makers and
European authorities in transport, freight and logistics by offering
detailed information on which parts of Europe's ground transport
network are at particularly high risk concerning landslide activity. |
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| ISSN: | 1561-8633 1684-9981 |