Maps of seismic landslides hazard in the Catania area using specialised GIS applications
by
Giovanni Biondi
University of Catania - Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Coauthors: Michele Maugeri, Giuseppe Mussumeci , Antonio Condorelli

Seismic induced landslides represent one of the most damaging collateral hazards associated with earthquakes. Damages induced from earthquake-triggered landslides often exceed damages directly related to the ground shaking. Moreover, serious consequences are frequently related to the landslides effects on lifelines serviceability and to the damages induced on road and railway networks. These last aspects play an important role in the post-seismic scenario since are related to the emergency management of the stricken area. For all these reasons, the analysis of seismic response of natural slopes and the evaluation of post-seismic serviceability of earth-structures involved in road and railway networks have received great impulse in the last decades.

For the evaluation of seismic stability conditions of slopes and earth-structures the use of a Newmark-type analysis represents a convenient compromise between the required degree of accuracy and the level of knowledge of topographical, geotechnical and seismic characteristics. This approach becomes a powerful tool for the seismic hazard mitigation procedure if implemented in a geographical information system. The goal of this kind of analysis is the evaluation of the earthquake-induced permanent displacement of slopes and its spatial distribution in order to obtain useful tools for the emergency management phase.

In this paper a GIS-based model for prediction of earthquake-triggered landslides hazard is presented for the eastern part of Sicily, focusing the attention on the urban and extra-urban area of Catania. To this purposes Newmark sliding block models are adopted in conjunction with attenuation relationships of peak seismic parameters.

The results of the analysis consist of a geographical information system that allows to obtain a map of the potentially instable areas and an evaluation of earthquake-induced permanent displacements; based on this results, the post-seismic serviceability condition of the Catania main road network is performed using a displacement-damage relationship.

Date received: September 1, 2004

Copyright © 2004 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caon-27.