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The reconnaissance, mapping and analysis of kinematic features of slow-moving landslides evolving along medium-deep sliding surfaces in urban areas can be a difficult task due to the presence and interactions of/with anthropic structures/infrastructures and human activities that can conceal morphological signs of landslide activity. The paper presents an integrated approach to investigate the boundaries, type of movement, kinematics and interactions (in terms of damage severity distribution) with the built environment of a roto-translational slow-moving landslide affecting the historic centre of Lungro town (Calabria region, southern Italy). For this purpose, ancillary multi-source data (e.g. geological-geomorphological features and geotechnical properties of geomaterials), both conventional inclinometer monitoring and innovative non-invasive remote sensing (i.e. A-DInSAR) displacement data were jointly analyzed and interpreted to derive the A-DInSAR-geotechnical velocity (DGV) map of the landslide. This result was then cross-compared with detailed information available on the visible effects (i.e. crack pattern and width) on the exposed buildings along with possible conditioning factors to displacement evolution (i.e. remedial works, sub-services, etc.). The full integration of multi-source data available at the slope scale, by maximizing each contribution, provided a comprehensive outline of kinematic-geometric landslide features that were used to investigate the damage distribution and to detect, if any, anomalous locations of damage severity and relative possible causes. This knowledge can be used to manage landslide risk in the short term and, in particular, is propaedeutic to set up an advanced coupled geotechnical-structural model to simulate both the landslide displacements and the behavior of interacting buildings and, therefore, to implement appropriate risk mitigation strategies over medium/long period.

Despite the current developments in flood forecasting and emergency management, floods still consist a significant threat to people and properties. At a national level in Europe, data on flood fatalities are fragmentary and they are mainly focused on death toll, without providing further details regarding victims' characteristics or the circumstances under which the deadly events have taken place. However, such details could enlighten us on what happened wrong when there was a victim due to a flood, and what measures should be taken in order to avoid similar events in the future. This paper presents the EUFF 2020 database (EUropean Flood Fatalities-FF) (EUropean Flood Fatalities-FF) (https://doi.org/10.4121/uuid:489d8a13-1075-4d2f-accb-db7790e4542f, Petrucci et al., 2020) which collects data from 2483 flood deadly cases occurred in a 39-year period (1980–2018) in 8 countries and 9 (two belong in Spain) study areas (Czech Republic, Israel, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Portugal, South France, Catalonia and Balearic Islands). EUFF 2020 (Petrucci et al., 2020) attempts to shed light on fatal flood events in the Euro-Mediterranean region under various geomorphological and climatic settings. The paper presents both regional and super-regional analyses from gender, age, conditions, activity of fatalities and dynamics of the accidents point of view aiming to contribute to a better understanding of the population exposure to floods phenomena. The historical research, which was carried out by using local documentary sources, highlights that 64.8 % of FF have been due to flood events in which less than 10 people were killed. Due to this relatively small number of losses, these events have not been recorded in the international disaster databases. Flood events causing single and multiple fatalities occurred throughout the period of our analysis without showing any particular remarkable trend. Data confirm that victim’s gender only, is not a de facto driver of social vulnerability. In addition, females flood fatalities are quantitatively more than males. Males' vulnerability depends on a stronger exposure to floods, due to the higher proportion of males driving vehicles, doing outdoorsworking activities and sometimes undertaking risky actions. The majority of fatalities are people in their most productive working age (between 30 and 64 years old), who are exposed to floods outdoor while heading from home to work or vice-versa. Elderly people (in status of retirement) seem to be more frequently affected while being indoor, trapped by the flood in their premises, while adults and children are dragged outdoors. Driving car or any other kind of vehicles are the most frequent conditions of victims in all studied areas, for both males and females, as widely stated in literature. The EUFF 2020 database can be extended spatially and temporally, and it represents a European database of high scientific and practical potential for further use in various scientific disciplines. We hope, EUFF 2020 database will further motivate researchers to enrich with even more data on flood fatalities from their home countries. Spatial extension will allow the comparison of local frameworks in broader European scale and the identification of useful general and local features of risk management and educational campaigns. We believe that the followed pan-European approach, frames the anticipation of flood fatality risk into a broader context, promising benefit for diverse scientific disciplines and contributing to public policies and civil protection campaigns in order to reduce the number of floods' fatalities in the future.

Damaging Hydrogeological Events (DHE) are defined as rainy periods during which landslides and floods can damage people. The paper investigated the effects of DHE on people living in Calabria (southern Italy) in the period 2000–2014, using data coming from the systematic survey of regional newspapers. Data about fatalities, people injured and people involved (not killed neither hurt) were stored in the database named PEOPLE, made of three sections: (1) event identification, (2) victim-event interaction, (3) effects on people. The outcomes highlighted vulnerability factors related to gender and age: males were killed more frequently (75 %) than females (25 %), and fatalities were older (average age 49 years) than injured (40.1 years) and involved people (40.5 years). The average ages of females killed (67.5 years), injured (43.4 years) and involved (44.6 years) were higher than the same values assessed for males, maybe indicating that younger females tended to be more cautious than same-age males, while older females showed an intrinsic greater vulnerability. Involved people were younger than injured people and fatalities, perhaps because younger people show greater promptness to react in dangerous situations. In the study region, floods caused more fatalities (67.9 %), injured (55 %) and involved people (55.3 %) than landslides. Fatalities and injuries mainly occurred outdoor, especially along roads, and the most dangerous dynamic was to be dragged by flood, causing the majority of fatalities (71.4 %). These outcomes can be used to strengthen the strategies aimed at saving people, and to customise warning campaigns according to the local risk features and people's behaviour. The results can improve the understanding of the potential impacts of geo-hydrological hazards on the population and can increase risk awareness among both administrators and citizens.

This paper presents the results of a numerical analysis aimed at investigating the response – in terms of damage occurrence and development – of a masonry building undergoing settlements induced by a slow-moving landslide. The analysis is performed by applying the Equivalent Frame Method to a model representative of a low-rise building with shallow foundations located in the historic centre of Lungro town (Calabria region, southern Italy). As a main novelty, data collected by way of both conventional (i.e. inclinometers) and innovative (i.e. DInSAR) monitoring techniques are used to derive the three-dimensional settlement trough to be imposed to the building model’s foundation in the numerical analyses. The obtained outcomes are compared with information gathered from multi-temporal damage surveys to the modeled building. Based on previous studies aimed at typifying the slow-moving landslides, the results obtained could concur to the generation of certain building-foundation-landslide typified models helpful for damage forecasting at the municipal scale.

Le frane e la loro conoscenza, essenziale per progettare gli interventi che concorrono alla gestione del rischio, presentano notevoli complessità e richiedono un impegno rilevante di tempo e di risorse. L'analisi sistematica dei risultati di studi su frane rappresentative in contesti geo-ambientali e sociali omogenei consente di individuare "famiglie" di frane tipizzate costituite da due o più frane che presentano un adeguato numero di elementi caratteristici simili (geomateriali, profondità massima, velocità caratteristiche, ecc.). Il metodo proposto nella nota consente una comprensione più rapida dei meccanismi di frana riconducibili ad una famiglia di frane tipizzate e, ancora, di trasferire e utilizzare le conoscenze dal singolo versante, all'area vasta ed all'analisi regionale in maniera circolare ed efficace. La diffusione delle rocce metamorfiche in Calabria, gneissiche in particolare, e il profondo grado di alterazione che le caratterizza, le espone ad un'elevata suscettibilità alle frane. In tale scenario, il metodo proposto ed i risultati che fornisce costituiscono utili strumenti per la definizione di efficaci strategie di intervento per l'adattamento, la mitigazione e la riduzione del rischio da frana. Utilizzando risultati relativi ad aree e siti oggetto di studi interdisciplinari, sono illustrati nella nota gli elementi di frana tipizzati con i livelli di analisi considerati (regionale, su area vasta e di dettaglio). La discussione dei risultati delinea la praticabilità del percorso proposto e conferma l'utilità a sviluppare l'approccio, con i dovuti approfondimenti e le necessarie precisazioni, per altri contesti geoambientali. Si rileva, in conclusione, come la disponibilità di frane tipizzate consente su area vasta di pianificare le priorità degli interventi e di programmare al meglio l'utilizzo delle risorse disponibili, mentre per il singolo versante permette di massimizzare le conoscenze a parità di risorse disponibili e, quindi, di garantire una maggiore sostenibilità socio-economica degli interventi nel medio-lungo termine. Gli elementi tipizzati con livello di analisi regionale indirizzano, infine, la scelta di aree di studio rappresentative di particolari possibili condizioni di rischio.

Summary Damaging Hydrogeological Events (DHEs) are periods of severe weather conditions affecting wide areas for several days, and causing mainly damaging landslides and floods. In order to characterise the DHEs, we analysed the historical series of the events that affected a Mediterranean region (Calabria, southern Italy) throughout 92 years of observation. Depending on their magnitude, we classified the events as: major catastrophic, catastrophic, extraordinary and ordinary. In winter events, damaged areas and damage were greater than those resulting from the other seasons. Nevertheless, the majority of the events took place in autumn, when, in addition to landslides, a relevant percentage of flash floods and floods also occurred. Results also show that the frequency of major catastrophic and catastrophic events has decreased since 1971, and that, in recent decades, Calabria has suffered from damaging effects even though rain did not reached extreme characteristics. In fact, the duration of triggering rain, the maximum daily rain of the events and the out coming frequency of the high return period of rain show a decreasing pattern throughout the study period. As to what concerns the damaging phenomena, landslides were identified as the most frequent in every season and in every type of events, the eastern side of the region was the most frequently and heavily damaged. According to literature, the trend of number of victims per event is also decreasing. The proposed analysis can be applied to different study areas in order to assess the relative magnitude of DHEs and their evolution throughout the years. The classification criterion can be useful to compare different events for either scientific or insurance purposes, and to identify the typical rainfall-damage scenario of a study area.

Background: in the Mediterranean environment, floods pose a significant threat to people, in spite of the noteworthy improvements in forecasting, emergency management and defensive works. Methodology: this paper examines flood mortality in the Mediterranean environment based on a 36-year long database (1980-2015) that was built in five study areas using documentary sources. Information on fatal accidents was disaggregated in database fields describing victim's profile and the circumstances of the accidents. Results: data show an increasing trend of flood fatalities during the study period. Accidents mainly occurred outdoor: the majority of the 458 fatalities were males, mainly aged between 30 and 49 years, and residents in the area of the accident. In the majority of cases, people were dragged by water/mud when travelling by car. Some cases of hazardous behaviours, such as fording rivers or trying to save belongings, were also detected. The cause of death was drowning in the majority of cases, and heart attack in a few cases it was. Significance: the results of the research can be proficiently used in information campaigns aiming to increase people safety during future floods.

Background: Damaging Hydrogeological Events (DHEs) are severe weather periods during which floods, landslides, lightning, windstorms, hail or storm surges can harm people. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency/intensity of DHEs and, consequently, the potential harm to people. Method: We investigated the impacts of DHEs on people in Calabria (Italy) over 37 years (1980-2016). Data on 7288 people physically affected by DHEs were gathered from the systematic analysis of regional newspapers and collected in the database named PEOPLE. The damage was codified in three severity levels as follows: fatalities (people who were killed), injured (people who suffered physical harm) and involved (people who were present at the place where an accident occurred but survived and were not harmed). During the study period, we recorded 68 fatalities, 566 injured and 6654 people involved in the events. Results: Males were more frequently killed, injured and involved than females, and females who suffered fatalities were older than males who suffered fatalities, perhaps indicating that younger females tended to be more cautious than same-aged males, while older females showed an intrinsic greater vulnerability. Involved people were younger than injured people and fatalities, suggesting that younger people show greater promptness in reacting to dangerous situations. Floods caused the majority of the fatalities, injured and involved people, followed by landslides. Lightning was the most dangerous phenomenon, and it affected a relatively low number of people, killing 11.63% of them and causing injuries to 37.2%. Fatalities and injuries mainly occurred outdoors, largely along roads. In contrast, people indoors, essentially in public or private buildings, were more frequently involved without suffering harm. Being "dragged by water/mud" and "surrounded by water/mud", respectively, represented the two extremes of dynamic dangerousness. The dragging effect of rapid-flowing water totally or partially obstructed the attempts of people to save their lives. In contrast, people surrounded by steady water/mud encountered difficulties but ultimately could survive. Conclusions: The study outcomes can be used in informational campaigns to increase risk awareness among both administrators and citizens and to improve community resilience, particularly in promoting self-protective behaviors and avoiding the underestimation of hazardous situations.

Slope failures are the result of various predisposing factors (geo-structural and morphological conditions, topography, geotechnical characteristics, etc.). In an ordinary phase, a typical slope stability analysis includes the identification of factors that can trigger a slope failure, its mechanisms, the modelling of stability conditions and their assessment during critical situations. To define the predisposing and triggering factors, integrated monitoring represents an essential and powerful tool. In this paper, referring to the case study of a medium-deep landslide that occurred in Calabria (Southern Italy) during the winter of 2009–2010, a method and means of defining an emergency geotechnical model (smart geotechnical model) using a geological model are proposed. The definition of both models considers the resources that may be obtained in an emergency and the short time available to achieve the objectives (protection of public and private safety, restoration of normal conditions, etc.). The proposed method allows the orderly and systematic acquisition, under emergency conditions, of data that are useful for the management of a particular situation and for defining an initial cognitive state of the problem. These elements can be particularly effective in both emergency (to manage risk using progressively quantitative knowledge) and ordinary conditions to plan, design, realize and manage definitive measures for risk adaptation, mitigation and reduction. Moreover, the same knowledge can provide useful references to typify landslides that occur in similar geo-environmental contexts.

Collecting and studying the mortality during flood events came up as a relevant issue on the last ten years: i) to assess the impacts of floods, ii) to assess prevention policies and iii) to improve prevention measures. The building of the MEditerranean Flood Fatalities (MEFF) database has been a first step to address flood related mortality in the Mediterranean basin. Data on the circumstances of death during flood events and the profile of dead people has been collected and put together for five Mediterranean regions: Catalonia (Spain), Balearic Islands (Spain), southern France, Greece, Calabria (Italy). The period covered goes from 1980 to 2015. Till now, a first step to explore the interest of the database has been the analysis of raw data to show the general features of flood related mortality. But the raw data show strong discrepancies between regions/countries and periods regarding the number of fatalities and the profile of dead people. To go further, this presentation proposes to build a flood mortality index that can express mortality in relative terms. Flood related fatalities are linked to people at risk and a mortality index is calculated per million of exposed people. This Index might allow comparing the "weight" of flood related mortality through periods and between regions. Further exploration is tested to integrate hazard data (rainfall or discharge e.g. in terms of return period) as an explanatory variable of flood mortality.

Damaging Hydrogeological Events (DHEs) are severe weather periods during which floods, landslides, lightning, windstorms, hail or storm surges can harm people. This work aims to highlight the potentiality of historical databases of damage caused by DHEs in the study of the effects on people. Particularly, the analysis aims to detect modifications of risk conditions for people throughout the years, related either to change in the characteristics of the events or to societal changes and modifications of people behaviour. In order to do this, we investigated the impacts of DHEs on people in Calabria (Italy) over 37 years (1980-2016). We gathered data by mean of the systematic analysis of regional newspapers and we collected them in the database named PEOPLE. The damage was codified in three severity levels as follows: fatalities (people who were killed), injured (people who suffered physical harm) and involved (people who were present at the place where an accident occurred but survived and were not harmed). Throughout the study period, the analysis shows that, due to their daily displacements to reach places of work, Calabrian males were more frequently killed, injured and involved outside (generally on the roads). On the contrary, females, among who the percentage of working persons was lower, were more often affected indoor. Younger females tended to be more cautious than same-aged males, while older females showed an intrinsic greater vulnerability, resulting in relatively higher number of fatalities. Involved people, both males and females, were younger than injured people and fatalities, suggesting that younger people show greater promptness in reacting to dangerous situations. Floods caused the majority of the fatalities, injured and involved people, followed by landslides. Lightning was the most dangerous phenomenon, and it affected a relatively low number of people, killing 11.63% of them and causing injuries to 37.2%. Moreover, this kind of phenomenon affected a decreasing number of people during the second half of the study period. This trend can be partially related to the progressive shift of the population from rural to urban areas, as also detected in other countries, during the twentieth century. Fatalities and injuries mainly occurred outdoors, largely along roads. In contrast, people indoors were more frequently involved without suffering harm. Being "dragged by water/mud" and "surrounded by water/mud", respectively, represented the two extremes of dynamic dangerousness. The dragging effect of rapid-flowing water totally or partially obstructed the attempts of people to save their lives. In contrast, people surrounded by steady water/mud encountered difficulties but ultimately could survive. The study results are useful in highlighting the trend of risky behaviours undertaken by people throughout the years and the most frequent recent tendency to risky behaviours. This information can be used for informational campaigns to increase risk awareness among both administrators and citizens and to improve resilience, promoting self-protective behaviours and avoiding the underestimation of hazardous situations.

The paper deals with Damaging Hydrogeological Events (DHEs), defined as periods of severe weather affecting wide regions for several days, and during which landslides and floods cause economic damage and there are victims. The great variability of DHEs in both space and time is the cause of one of the main problems to solve in performing analyses of these events. Dealing with events affecting wide areas for several days, it is problematic to isolate the rainy days that can be considered as factors triggering the observed damaging phenomena. We develop a methodological approach aiming to select and analyse rainfall events that triggered damage. The analysis allows the highlighting of some seasonal characteristics of Calabrian DHEs. The approach can be used for an in-depth analysis leading to the identification of both rainfall thresholds for DHE triggering and rain/damage relationships.

Recent events in Western Attica in Greece (24 deaths in November 2017), in the Balearic Islands (13 deaths in October 2018), and in southern France (15 deaths in October 2018) show that flood-related mortality remains a major concern in Mediterranean countries facing flash floods. Over the past several years, many initiatives have arisen to create databases on flood-related mortality. An international initiative started in 2011 pooling regional and national databases on flood mortality from region and/or countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. The MEditerranean Flood Fatality Database (MEFF DB) brings together, in 2018, six Mediterranean regions/countries: Catalonia (Spain), Balearic Islands (Spain), Southern France, Calabria (Italy), Greece, and Turkey, and covers the period 1980&ndash, 2018. MEFF DB is on progress and, every year, new data are included, but for this study, we kept only the preliminary data that were geolocated and validated on 31st of December 2018. This research introduces a new step in the analysis of flood-related mortality and follows the statistical description of the MEFF DB already published. The goals of this paper are to draw the spatial distribution of flood mortality through a geographical information system (GIS) at different spatial scales: country, NUTS 3 (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics. Level 3) regions, catchment areas, and grid. A fatality rate (F: number of deaths/year/million of inhabitants) is created to help this analysis. Then, we try to relate mortality to basic (human or physical) drivers such as population density, rainfall seasonality, or rainfall frequency across the Mediterranean Basin. The mapping of F shows a negative mortality gradient between the western and the eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea. The south of France appears to be the most affected region. The maps also highlight the seasonality of flood-related deaths with the same west&ndash, east gradient. It confirms that flood mortality follows the climatological seasonal patterns across the Mediterranean Basin. Flood-related fatalities mainly occur during the early fall season in the western part of the Mediterranean area, while the Easter Basin is affected later, in November or during the winter season. Eastern Turkey introduces another pattern, as mortality is more severe in summer. Mortality maps are then compared with factors that potentially contribute to the occurrence of flood fatalities, such as precipitation intensity (rainfall hazard), to explain geographical differences in the fatality rate. The density of a fatal event is correlated to the population density and the rainfall frequency. Conversely, the average number of deaths per event depends on other factors such as prevention or crisis management.

Floods and flash floods are widespread phenomena in Mediterranean countries, where they cause severe damage and pose a threat to the people. The aim of this work is to highlight similarities and differences, if any, among circumstances and people behavior in four Mediterranean countries frequently affected by fatal floods: France, Italy, Spain, and Greece. In order to do this, we collected and organized detailed information on victims caused by floods throughout the period 1981-2015. The database is made of different sections allowing: a) Event identification, in terms of time of occurrence and place where fatalities occurred, b) People identification, in terms of gender, age, and often even the name and surname of victims, c) People-event interaction, characterizing the circumstances in which fatalities occurred, including dangerous behaviors, d) External features that could have had some influence on the occurrence of fatalities, as the presence/absence of alert systems and prevention measures. We used the collected information to investigate the event dynamics that led to the loss of lives and we identified the most dangerous event circumstances. The aim is to understand how and why people are involved in these events, and the most dangerous conditions, places, activities and dynamics of people-event interaction. The results can improve the understanding of the impacts that floods pose to people and can increase risk awareness among administrators and citizens. The outcomes can also be used to understand and highlight similarities and differences, if existing, in the behaviors of people in the four analyzed countries, in order to strength the strategies aiming to save people and warn about risky behaviors. We think our study can improve the understanding on the impacts that geo-hydrological hazards pose to the population of analyzed places, and on their consequences, and we believe it could be an important step for increasing knowing and awareness among administrators and citizens.

Calabria (southern Italy) is a region exposed to the effects of contrasting climatic and hydrological phenomena. In fact, due to its oblong shape, to its position in the middle of the Mediterranean Basin, and for its mountainous nature, Calabria shows a high spatial variability of the climatic features and of related phenomena such as floods and drought. The present paper is based on the historical database ASICal (Historically flooded areas in Calabria), a catalogue of effects of floods and rain-related landslides that occurred in the region since the XIX Century. The catalogue has been built using the typical historical data sources as chronicles, diaries, historical books, local and regional agencies, press archives, scientific papers, and documents of civil protection offices. From these sources, we selected information on damage caused by rain related phenomena at a municipal scale and chronologically sorted by year, month and day. The analysis of the entire catalogue allows highlighting the regional Damaging Hydrogeological Events (DHE), defined as periods of intense rain causing damage on regional sectors conventionally selected as larger than 30% of the entire regional territory. For each event, as a measure of the magnitude of rainfall, the return period of the daily rainfall recorded during the event has been evaluated. In addition, we recently carried out a similar historical research to identify the main drought events affecting the region. In this case, due to the spatial and temporal characteristics of drought, data are collected both at municipal and regional scale, and the temporal scale is generally monthly or annual. For each event, we used as climatic descriptors a drought index for monitoring drought phenomena. Among drought indices, we used the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) which can be considered the most robust and effective, since it can be calculated for different time-scales and can be used to analyse different drought categories. Moreover, the SPI is easier to calculate than complex indices, as it is based on precipitation alone, and allows comparing drought conditions among different periods and regions. Both the series have been analysed jointly, in order to obtain the general trend of extreme rain and drought, characterised by mean of descriptive climatic features and damage caused. The results supply a glance in the past climatic history of the region that can be used to project to future and be prepared for ongoing changes related to climate changes. In fact, the identification of the most floods and drought prone areas can be useful for both civil protection mitigation strategies and water resources management (water used for home, industrial, and agricultural purposes).

We present a methodological approach to assess the severity of Damaging Hydrogeological Events (DHEs), defined as rainy periods affecting wide regions for several days, and during which landslides and floods cause economic damage and fatalities. A DHE is the result of a triggering rainfall event affecting a region and causing damaging phenomena, as river floods and mass movements, on its territory. The methodological approach, thus, is founded on the historical series of both triggering rainfall and resulting damage. For the DHE that occurred in Calabria (Southern Italy) during the last 100 years, we assessed some severity indicators of both the damage and the daily rainfall recorded. Using these indicators, we built a chart where the events can be plotted and classified, according to their magnitude, as major catastrophic, catastrophic, extraordinary and ordinary events. The results show that, in the study region, winter events, among the others, affected the wider regional sectors, while the most numerous cases occurred in autumn season. Results on the temporal evolution of the DHEs show that the frequency of major catastrophic and catastrophic events has decreased since 1971, and that, in recent decades, Calabria has suffered from damaging effects even though daily rain did not reached extreme values. In fact, the duration of triggering rain, the maximum daily rain of the events and the frequency of the high-return-period-rain showed a decreasing trend throughout the study period. As to what concerns the damaging phenomena, landslides were identified as the most frequent in every season and in each type of events, and the eastern side of the region was identified as the most frequently and heavily damaged. In autumn cases, landslides caused the majority of damage, besides to relevant percentages of damage caused by flash floods and floods. Finally, according to literature, a decreasing trend in the number of victims per event was also evaluated. The proposed analysis can be applied to different study areas in order to assess the relative magnitude of DHEs and their evolution throughout the years. Nevertheless, due to the strict relationship between climatic and geomorphological features of the area, historical data collection must be specifically carried out, to define the typical characteristics of local events and to build a local event chart. The classification criterion adopted in this study can be useful to compare different events for either scientific or insurance purposes, and to characterize the rainfalldamage scenario of a study area.

Background: Damaging Hydrogeological Events (DHEs) are severe weather periods during which floods, landslides, lightning, windstorms, hail or storm surges can harm people. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency/intensity of DHEs and, consequently, the potential harm to people. Method: We investigated the impacts of DHEs on people in Calabria (Italy) over 37 years (1980-2016). Data on 7288 people physically affected by DHEs were gathered from the systematic analysis of regional newspapers and collected in the database named PEOPLE. The damage was codified in three severity levels as follows: fatalities (people who were killed), injured (people who suffered physical harm) and involved (people who were present at the place where an accident occurred but survived and were not harmed). During the study period, we recorded 68 fatalities, 566 injured and 6654 people involved in the events. Results: Males were more frequently killed, injured and involved than females, and females who suffered fatalities were older than males who suffered fatalities, perhaps indicating that younger females tended to be more cautious than same-aged males, while older females showed an intrinsic greater vulnerability. Involved people were younger than injured people and fatalities, suggesting that younger people show greater promptness in reacting to dangerous situations. Floods caused the majority of the fatalities, injured and involved people, followed by landslides. Lightning was the most dangerous phenomenon, and it affected a relatively low number of people, killing 11.63% of them and causing injuries to 37.2%. Fatalities and injuries mainly occurred outdoors, largely along roads. In contrast, people indoors, essentially in public or private buildings, were more frequently involved without suffering harm. Being "dragged by water/mud" and "surrounded by water/mud", respectively, represented the two extremes of dynamic dangerousness. The dragging effect of rapid-flowing water totally or partially obstructed the attempts of people to save their lives. In contrast, people surrounded by steady water/mud encountered difficulties but ultimately could survive. Conclusions: The study outcomes can be used in informational campaigns to increase risk awareness among both administrators and citizens and to improve community resilience, particularly in promoting self-protective behaviors and avoiding the underestimation of hazardous situations.

The paper deals with Damaging Hydrogeological Events (DHEs), defined as periods of severe weather affecting wide regions for several days, and during which landslides and floods cause economic damage and there are victims. The great variability of DHEs in both space and time is the cause of one of the main problems to solve in performing analyses of these events. Dealing with events affecting wide areas for several days, it is problematic to isolate the rainy days that can be considered as factors triggering the observed damaging phenomena. We develop a methodological approach aiming to select and analyse rainfall events that triggered damage. The analysis allows the highlighting of some seasonal Characteristics of Calabrian DHEs. The approach can be used for an in-depth analysis leading to the identification of both rainfall thresholds for DHE triggering and rain/damage relationships.

The high incidence of soil slips in an area of Calabria (Southern Italy) that is representative of a typical geo-environmental context, suggested a research aimed to the geotechnical characterisation of finegrained soils involved in this kind of instability. The paper shows the geotechnical investigation carried out on samples coming from two test sites individuated in the study area named Stretta di Catanzaro . The results give a first reference scheme about the physical-mechanical characteristics of the soils affected by shallow and fast sliding-flow soil slip instabilities. In particular, they permit: to characterise soils with stress levels coherent with the thickness of the materials involved in shallow instabilities; to define the influence of soil saturation on its shear strength; to investigate about the influence of degradation processes on shear strength.