Landscape resilience and territorial dynamics in inner areas affected by landslides

Calamitous events, such landslides, can strongly influence landscape evolution affecting vegetation dynamics, creating new habitats, modifying species occurrence and distribution, and sediment transport. This study investigates the mutual relationships between landslide and landscape. To assess the impact of recurring landslides on landscape, a first analysis concerns the landscape structure and changes occurred among the land cover classes. Landscape composition and configuration are studied using landscape ecology metrics. Furthermore, a sequence (1984-2013) of satellite data (Landsat series) has been processed to estimate changes within each land cover class and evaluate biomass productions. The analyses have been performed in areas historically affected by these phenomena (Collazzone, Central Italy). The land cover distributions per landslide susceptibility class highlight the dominance (>80%) of agricultural areas in exposed surfaces; about 60% of these areas are represented by intensive agriculture. For such a land use class, generally delimited by very regular contours, shape metrics show a rather unusual shape complexity, and satellite data highlight a reduction of productivity with a shift toward negative anomalies (~35%) corroborating the negative feedback of intensive agriculture in areas prone to landslides.