Basis of spatial landslide risk assessment (FIGURES)

Abstract

The tendency in using quantitative approach has strongly been influenced by the trend of probabilities. The use of probabilistic (stochastic) methods is now widely used in earth sciences even when it is unknown whether or not the process is governed by a stochastic law. Mistakenly, quantitative assessments are seen as less uncertain than qualitative ones, which is theoretically true. But real situations show an increasing number of assumptions applied for risk assessment in order to make them quantitative, without recognition of the uncertainties. Usually, most risk assessment implementations are considered ‘validated’ when the scenarios projected match the expectations to the user requirements. Thus, validation for landslide risk assessment is a topic that need more research in the near future.