THE ITALIAN INVENTORY OF GEO-HYDROLOGICAL CATASTROPHES: POSSIBLE APPLICATIONS IN FLOOD AND LANDSLIDE RESEARCH

(F. Cipolla, C. Sebastiani, SGA, v.le Cataldi Bombrini 2/3q, 16145 Genova, Italy & O. Lolli, S. Pagliacci, Co.Geo. Umbria, via della Scuola, 06087 P.S. Giovanni, Perugia, Italy)

Historical analysis of landslides and floods can prove effective when estimating geological and hydrological hazards for planning purposes. In Italy, with the completion of the AVI project, a nation-wide bibliographical and archive inventory of landslides and floods, historical information on more than 10,000 events, is now available. Throught a careful review of this database, that covers a period of about 80 years from 1918 to 1990, a set of Regional Reports were completed. The reports, prepared for each one of the 20 italian regions, contain a comprehensive list of sites affected by landslides or floods together with, where available, the event's date. In an organised framework, they provide the basic information for preparing a single, nation-wide catalog of sites historically affected by geo-hydrological catastrophes. Attempts have been recently made to use this information for assessing the spatial and temporal incidence of geo-hydrological catastrophes at the regional scale, as well as for identifing recurrencies for floods and landslide-triggering meteorogical events. Studying the spatial and temporal relationship of landslides and floods with respect to the triggering hydrological characteristics, regional hydrological thresholds were tentatively established.