A large, slow-moving earth flow in the Northern Apennines: the Signatico Landslide (Italy)

Abstract

The Signatico landslide is located in Northern Italy, on the Po plain side of the Apennines, along the river Parma. It is a complex landslide with a total length of about 3 km (the accumulation zone only occupies over 1 km of the river bed). It involves rotational slides and falls from the crown, but the displaced material is very quickly weathered and dismembered, moving downstream as a long, slow flow. This landslide has undergone many reactivations, historically dating back to the Middle Ages. Now, many human facilities are directly at risk: an important road, some villages and some other scattered houses. A comparison of aerial photos taken over the last 30 years was made, in order to identify signals of the landslide evolution while engineering-geological surveys investigated the landslide and the surrounding areas. A monitoring system is also in progress. The aim of this study is to forecast a possible new reactivation. In this case, it is important to give, as soon as technically possible, the information to civil protection so that loss reduction measures can be adequately planned.