An Increasing Trend of Landslides as a Consequence of the Global Change

Abstract A study is presented on the trend of temporal variation in landslide activity for the last decades in a context of global change, with an intensification of human activity and a changing climate. Different existing databases are reviewed and the limitations to provide sound information on the temporal trends in landslides occurrence are explored and discussed. We also analyze data from the EM-DAT database on disasters in the 1960–2020 time window, applying two different procedures: correction of frequencies of disasters using a magnitude (fatalities) and application of a nonparametric regression technique (the kernel regression) to analyze the ratio between landslide disasters and disasters of other types. Both methods show an increase in the number of disasters in the last 60 years, with a stabilization or possible reduction in the last 2–3 decades. Landslide disasters are growing relatively more than seismic disasters, which may be related to the manifestation of global change on the Earth’s surface. Similarly, since the 1990s, purely climatic disasters have been growing relatively more than landslide disasters. Graphical Abstract This contribution explores the recent temporal trend of landslide activity in the context of global change. Different landslide databases are reviewed and found to have significant limitations. In detail, the EM-DAT database on disasters in the 1960–2020 time window has been analyzed, through a novel double approach: correction of temporal frequencies of disasters using a magnitude normalized by the number of fatalities and application of a nonparametric regression technique (the kernel regression) to analyze the ratio between landslide disasters and disasters of other types. The methods work independently to tackle the deficiencies in the primary data, and their synergy reinforces the results. Both methods show an increasing trend in the number of landslide disasters for the last 60 years, with a stabilization or even a possible reduction in the last 2–3 decades. Landslide disasters are increasing relatively more than seismic disasters, which could be related to climatic factors and human intervention on the Earth’s surface. However, compared to purely climatic disasters, they have increased relatively more than landslide disasters since the 1990s, likely because of the climate change.