Índice de susceptibilidad a movimientos del terreno y su aplicación en una región semiárida

Abstract

Environmental interactions play a very important role as triggering factors of mass failure. In order to understand mass movement processes it is necessary to consider the relationships among all these elements, and not only on the geotechnical properties of the materials involved. The goal of this study was the determination of landslide susceptibility under semi-arid conditions. It is based on regional and local observations and analysis of structures, as well as on the environmental interactions between elements such  as geology, topography and climate, which play a crucial role in the occurrence of failures. The strategy has been applied to the Alpujarras zone, on the south side of the Sierra Nevada in Granada Province (Southeastern Spain) where mica-schists and phyllites outcrop in geological complex metamorphic environments. Data and field observations were integrated on a simple shallow failure susceptibility indicator, based on the combination of a wetness index approach (TOPMODEL), a geological and lithological reconstruction, structural features and slope attributes. Field observations indicated that the produced map is a good spatial representation of the shallow landslides.