Abstract

As stated in many issues, the climate a leading cause of triggering and evolution of mass movements. Differentlyfrom other triggering factors the climatic factors can be well defined for the past and forecasted in the short andmedium term. Therefore, the recognition of the climatic trends related to geomorphological and hydrogeologicalmodifications allows for a prevision of landslides and other impacts on human life.The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that the global sea level will riseof 60 cm by the year 2100 in response to the warming of the oceans and melting of glaciers. This couldhave a significant impact on the evolution of the environment if we take into account that coastal areas houseapproximately 10% of the world population.This paper describes an example of how climate change, and all possible related effects, played a driving role onthe triggering and evolution of a huge landslide.The studied area is the coastal slope of the town of Vasto (Abruzzo, Central Italy) recently affected by numerouslandslide reactivations. The landslide body extends for 2 km2 from the crown zone (at about 150 m a.s.l.) towardsthe coastal line. The deep-seated gravitational deformations and large landslides with submarine foots observedon the Vasto coastline are typical of mass movements occurring along the Adriatic coast, in the Plio-Pleistocenesequences represented by clays, sands and conglomerates with continental deposits covers.This study shows that the historical reactivations of the landslide, as well as its scarp retrogression, are relatedto transients destabilizing factors such as rainfall or snow-melting whereas oldest and deeper mass movementswere caused by various eustatic fluctuations in sea level, starting from the emergence of the slope in the middlePleistocene, where the sub-aerial phase of the transgressive marine succession began.A paleo-morphologic reconstruction of the slope enabled to correlate the numerous instabilities over time to thefluctuations in the level of the Adriatic Sea from the Middle Pleistocene to the present.For a more complete study, it was necessary to reconstruct a "geological-evolutionary model of the slope"that could explain the current stratigraphic features and the actual landsliding framework. The evolutionarymodel has been useful to understand and explain how the variation in sea level due to climate changes and thesimultaneous lifting of the area conditioned the present morphology of the hillside, predisposing the slope to awidespread landsliding. The results of geological-evolutionary model of the slope were validated using a FiniteElements stress-strain analysis carried out by means of the FLAC 6.0 calculation code. The stress-strain numericalsimulations show that the first activation of the landslide Vasto would have taken about 200,000 years ago at arapid rising of sea level.In conclusion, the landslide mass currently observable reflects a phenom

Autore Pugliese

• Trizzino Rosamaria

Tutti gli autori

• D. Taddei; R. Trizzino

Titolo volume/Rivista

Geophysical research abstracts

Anno di pubblicazione

2018

ISSN

1607-7962

ISBN

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

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Numero di citazioni Scopus

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Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

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