Landslide susceptibility assessment on the left side of the Izvorul Muntelui Lake bank, Romania

Abstract

Landslides are mass movements that are playing a very important role when it comes to the morphological evolution of the mountainous and hilly areas. Globally, landslides represent the geomorphologic hazard that produces the greatest damages, the losses being both economic and human. In Romania, the damages caused by landslides are, in most cases, economic. This study was developed because the mountainous area of Neam. county is one of the most susceptible to landslides areas, Bistri.a Valley from Borca and up to the area of Piatra-Neamt Municipality being very affected by this type of erosion. One of the reasons this study was developed is the lack of landslide susceptibility maps for the left side of the Izvorul Muntelui Lake bank, the only official maps being drawn up at county level, a too coarse approach for studying the susceptibility to landslides in a more detailed way. This study was carried out using the maximum entropy method, eleven landslide causal factors, two geomorphometric variables obtained by combining several geomorphometric derivates and the existing landslides position data that occurred over the past 15 years. A very conclusive result of this study is the very high impact of the National Road 15 and the high slope deforested areas on the onset of the landslides and the statistical modeling of the susceptibility.