Linking Vegetation Patterns and Landslide Occurrence: An Empirical Method.

We propose an approach for identifying the possible links between vegetation patterns and landscape portions interested by landslides. The chosen study area is the Marche Region (central Italy), and within this, the Esino River Valley was selected as a smaller focus area for multitemporal analysis. The land cover data for this area was available for the period 1990– 2006. With these data we performed a change detection, and a Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA) of land covers. The findings of these two analysis, were then integrated with: (a) the Italian national landslides database, also called AVI (considering only on the 646 landslides documented over the Marche region up to the year 1990), and (b) the local landslides database of the Esino Watershed (considering 421 landslides occurred over the 1990–2006 period). Results of the land covers change detection showed that in the study area many mixed cultivated patches were transformed into crops over the period 2000 and 2006. Results of the landslides pattern analysis showed high occurrence: (i) in structures that represent a transition between different covers (edge, branch, bridge) over the more vegetated areas, and (ii) in core areas of crops. Further studies are suggested in order to conclude a causal association between the vegetation patterns and landslide occurrence, repeating the described