2 research outputs found
Changes in land cover and shallow landslide activity: a case study in the Spanish Pyrenees
The Pyrenees, like many other mountain areas in Europe, have experienced
depopulation and land abandonment during the 20th Century. This has encouraged
vegetation recovery in formerly occupied areas, including reforestation to promote
woodland. The objective of this study is to analyse the effects of these changes on
shallow landsliding, a process responsible for erosion and land degradation in many
mountain areas. A sequence of aerial images reveals a slight decrease in the landslide
occurrence rate in the last half of the 20th Century and a parallel increase in the
landslide extinction rate, i.e. the rate at which evidence of landslide activity is removed
by vegetation colonisation. A logistic regression routine was used to assess the
influence of land use and vegetation recovery in the occurrence of shallow landslides.
The result shows that the former arable fields on the valley slopes still facilitate
landsliding, even after land abandonment and revegetation by shrubs or trees. A shift in
the topographic location of landslides was also detected, pointing to an increased
importance of water redistribution in the slopes after prolonged rainfall periods