Sediment yield is a key factor in river basins management due to the various and adverse consequences that erosion and sediment transport in rivers may have on the environment. Although various contributions can be found in the literature about sediment yield modeling and bank erosion monitoring, the link between weather conditions, river flow rate and bank erosion remains scarcely known. Thus, a basin scale assessment of sediment yield due to riverbank erosion is an objective hard to be reached. In order to enhance the current knowledge in this field, a monitoring method based on high resolution 3D model reconstruction of riverbanks, surveyed by multi-temporal terrestrial laser scanning, was applied to four banks in Val Tartano, Northern Italy. Six data acquisitions over one year were taken, with the aim to better understand the erosion processes and their triggering factors by means of more frequent observations compared to usual annual campaigns. The objective of the research is to address three key questions concerning bank erosion: “how” erosion happens, “when” during the year and “how much” sediment is eroded. The method proved to be effective and able to measure both eroded and deposited volume in the surveyed area. Finally an attempt to extrapolate basin scale volume for bank erosion is presented.

International directives encourage the incorporation of sediment transport analyses into flood risk assessment, in recognition of the significant role played by sediment in flood hazard. However, examples of risk analysis frameworks incorporating the effect of sediment transport are still not widespread in the literature, resulting in a lack of clear guidelines. This manuscript considers a study site in the Italian Alps and presents a hydro-morphologic model for generation of flood scenarios towards hazard assessment. The analysis is concentrated on a design flood event with 100-year return period, for which an outflowing discharge is computed as a result of the river modeling. However, it is also argued how suitable model input parameter values can be obtained from analyses of river flows in a yearly duration curve. Modeling tools are discussed with respect to their capabilities and limitations. The results of the analysis are site-specific, but the proposed methodology can be exported to other hydro-graphic basins.

Early-warning systems (EWSs) are crucial to reduce the risk of landslide, especially where the structural measures are not fully capable of preventing the devastating impact of such an event. Furthermore, designing and successfully implementing a complete landslide EWS is a highly complex task. The main technical challenges are linked to the definition of heterogeneous material properties (geotechnical and geomechanical parameters) as well as a variety of the triggering factors. In addition, real-time data processing creates a significant complexity, since data collection and numerical models for risk assessment are time consuming tasks. Therefore, uncertainties in the physical properties of a landslide together with the data management represent the two crucial deficiencies in an efficient landslide EWS. Within this study the application is explored of the concept of fragility curves to landslides; fragility curves are widely used to simulate systems response to natural hazards, i.e. floods or earthquakes. The application of fragility curves to landslide risk assessment is believed to simplify emergency risk assessment; even though it cannot substitute detailed analysis during peace-time. A simplified risk assessment technique can remove some of the unclear features and decrease data processing time. The method is based on synthetic samples which are used to define the approximate failure thresholds for landslides, taking into account the materials and the piezometric levels. The results are presented in charts. The method presented in this paper, which is called failure index fragility curve (FIFC), allows assessment of the actual real-time risk in a case study that is based on the most appropriate FIFC. The application of an FIFC to a real case is presented as an example. This method to assess the landslide risk is another step towards a more integrated dynamic approach to a potential landslide prevention system. Even if it does not define absolute thresholds, the accuracy is satisfactory for a preliminary risk assessment, and it can provide more lead-time to understand the hazard level in order to make decisions as compared with a more sophisticated numerical approach. Hence, the method is promising to become an effective tool during landslide emergency.

Ground collapses over abandoned underground mines constitute a new environmental risk in the world. The high risk associated with subsurface voids, together with lack of knowledge of the geometric and geomechanical features of mining areas, makes abandoned underground mines one of the current challenges for countries with a long mining history. In this study, a stability analysis of Montevecchia marl mine is performed in order to validate a general approach that takes into account the poor local information and the variability of the input data. The collapse risk was evaluated through a numerical approach that, starting with some simplifying assumptions, is able to provide an overview of the collapse probability. The final results is an easy-accessible-transparent summary graph that shows the collapse probability. This approach may be useful for public administrators called upon to manage this environmental risk. The approach tries to simplify this complex problem in order to achieve a roughly risk assessment, but, since it relies on just a small amount of information, any final user should be aware that a comprehensive and detailed risk scenario can be generated only through more exhaustive investigations.