Landslides are frequent and destructive geo-hydrological events that cause harm to people every year worldwide (Petley, 2012). In the 13-year period 2004-2016, Froude and Petley (2018) recorded 55, 997 landslide fatalities in 4,862 distinct landslide events at the global scale. Catalogues of landslide fatalities are also available at national and regional level. Nevertheless, a small number of studies have investigated the causes and circumstances that have led to the loss of lives. In Italy, a country where landslides cause significant societal and economic damage every year, a catalogue of landslide events with human consequences is continually updated, and used to determine the individual and the societal risk posed by landslides (Guzzetti 2000; Salvati et al., 2010, 2013; Rossi et al., 2019). Despite the efforts, little is known on the circumstances of landslides fatalities, and their dependence on the age, gender and time of the day. For this purpose, efforts were spent to update the national catalogue (Salvati et al., 2003; 2017) for the 51-year period 1970-2020. We looked specifically to the hour of occurrence grouping them in by day or by night and considering the daytime duration differences during the year. The new version of the catalogue lists 336 fatal landslides that have caused 1099 fatalities. We determined the gender (from the name) of 1,040 landslide fatalities (94.5%), and the age for 1,027 fatalities (93.5%) occurred in Italy in the period 1970 and 2020. Overall, males (587) account for 56.7% and females (453) for 43.3% of the landslide fatalities for which the gender is known in the catalogue. The new collected data allowed determining possible relations between the light condition (day or night), the places (indoor or outdoor), the gender (male, female) and the age (using 4 age categories) of landslide fatalities. We were able to identify the exact times for 948 fatalities (91%) and the exact place indoor or outdoor for 649 fatalities (62.4%). Then, for each fatality, we related the times of occurrence with the place (outdoor and indoor) were people lost their life and with the gender and age. Males lost their life frequently outdoor, mainly inside their vehicles, representing a dangerous death contingence, most of them occurring in daylight. Differently, female landslide fatalities occurred more frequently indoor and in the majority by night revealing for them, the dangerous condition of darkness. Using the national census data and a multinomial distribution we estimated the expected fatalities by gender and age and we compared the results with the observed landslide fatalities distribution. Landslide male fatalities compared to the female ones are significantly higher than those expected by census data, indicating both a diverse propensity towards the risk taking and a different degree of exposure between males and females
Conditions and behaviours influencing people vulnerability to landslides
Salvati Paola;Bianchi Cinzia;
2021
Abstract
Landslides are frequent and destructive geo-hydrological events that cause harm to people every year worldwide (Petley, 2012). In the 13-year period 2004-2016, Froude and Petley (2018) recorded 55, 997 landslide fatalities in 4,862 distinct landslide events at the global scale. Catalogues of landslide fatalities are also available at national and regional level. Nevertheless, a small number of studies have investigated the causes and circumstances that have led to the loss of lives. In Italy, a country where landslides cause significant societal and economic damage every year, a catalogue of landslide events with human consequences is continually updated, and used to determine the individual and the societal risk posed by landslides (Guzzetti 2000; Salvati et al., 2010, 2013; Rossi et al., 2019). Despite the efforts, little is known on the circumstances of landslides fatalities, and their dependence on the age, gender and time of the day. For this purpose, efforts were spent to update the national catalogue (Salvati et al., 2003; 2017) for the 51-year period 1970-2020. We looked specifically to the hour of occurrence grouping them in by day or by night and considering the daytime duration differences during the year. The new version of the catalogue lists 336 fatal landslides that have caused 1099 fatalities. We determined the gender (from the name) of 1,040 landslide fatalities (94.5%), and the age for 1,027 fatalities (93.5%) occurred in Italy in the period 1970 and 2020. Overall, males (587) account for 56.7% and females (453) for 43.3% of the landslide fatalities for which the gender is known in the catalogue. The new collected data allowed determining possible relations between the light condition (day or night), the places (indoor or outdoor), the gender (male, female) and the age (using 4 age categories) of landslide fatalities. We were able to identify the exact times for 948 fatalities (91%) and the exact place indoor or outdoor for 649 fatalities (62.4%). Then, for each fatality, we related the times of occurrence with the place (outdoor and indoor) were people lost their life and with the gender and age. Males lost their life frequently outdoor, mainly inside their vehicles, representing a dangerous death contingence, most of them occurring in daylight. Differently, female landslide fatalities occurred more frequently indoor and in the majority by night revealing for them, the dangerous condition of darkness. Using the national census data and a multinomial distribution we estimated the expected fatalities by gender and age and we compared the results with the observed landslide fatalities distribution. Landslide male fatalities compared to the female ones are significantly higher than those expected by census data, indicating both a diverse propensity towards the risk taking and a different degree of exposure between males and femalesI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
