Timely and systematic collection of landslide information after a triggering event is pivotal for the definition of landslide trends in response to climate change. On September 15, 2022, a large part of central Italy, particularly Marche and Umbria regions, was struck by an anomalous rainfall event that showed characteristics of a persistent convective system. An extraordinary cumulated rainfall of 419 mm was recorded by a rain gauge in the area in only 9 h. The rainfall triggered 1687 landslides in the area affected by the peak rainfall intensity and caused widespread flash floods and floods in the central and lower parts of the catchments. In this work, we describe the characteristics of the landslides identified during a field survey started immediately after the event. Most of the mass movements are shallow, and many are rapid (i.e., debris flows, earth flows) and widely affecting the road network. Landslide area spans from a few tens of square meters to 10⁵ m², with a median value of 87 m². Field evidence revealed diffuse residual risk conditions, being a large proportion of landslides located in the immediate vicinity of infrastructures. Besides reporting the spatial distribution of landslides triggered by an extreme rainfall event, the data collected on landslides can be used to make comparisons with the distribution of landslides in the past, validation of landslide susceptibility models, and definition of the general interaction between landslides and structures/infrastructures.

Starting on 24th August 2016, Central Italy was struck by a six-month earthquake sequence that caused 303 victims and extensive major damages to urban areas and infrastructures, in some cases entire villages needed complete rebuilding. In this paper we present a map that portrays the overall susceptibility to multiple landslide types and the exposure to landslides of the rural-urban areas of the Castelsantangelo sul Nera Municipality, a typical village of the central Italian Apennine. The map is based on a procedure that ingests geomorphological data and models and groups the individual landslide susceptibility maps in a joint susceptibility and exposure map based on expert-defined criteria. The procedure has been applied to built-up and to undeveloped areas to highlight their exposure and was used as a tool for planning post-seismic reconstruction. We advise that such maps are used also as basic tool for ordinary urban planning.

A 1:5,000 scale geological map and 31 geological cross-sections are presented for the surroundings of Amatrice village (central Apennines, Italy), epicentral area of the first damaging earthquake of the 2016–2017 seismic sequence. This detailed geological dataset focuses on: (i) the extent, the thickness, and the internal stratigraphic architecture of the Quaternary continental deposits; (ii) the bedding and the thickness of the Miocene substratum; and (iii) the spatial distribution of the main fault systems. The provided dataset would update the available regional geological maps in deciphering the syn-to-post-orogenic history of the Amatrice Basin. Eventually, the accuracy of the geological mapping would represent a basic tool for interpreting and integrating the multidisciplinary dataset deriving from post-seismic activities.

Landslide inventories provide the knowledge basis for many geomorphological applications and also planning and emergency management. Detailed landslide inventories should also be prepared where pre-existing inventories are available, as knowledge updates. In this paper, we present a new geomorphological landslide inventory for an area of the High Agri Valley, Southern Italian Apennines. The map was prepared through systematic interpretation of historical aerial photographs testing extensive use of anaglyph glasses in StereoPhoto Maker freeware. A total of 2124 landslides were classified based on the type of movement, estimated depth, estimated relative age and three levels of uncertainty, providing landslide attributes and map constraints useful for land planning and hazard studies. The map also documents the relationships between landslides and fluvial landforms of different generations, recording important information to investigate the geomorphological evolution of the area further. We expect that landslide mapping in similar environments will benefit from the workflow here presented.

Detailed and accurate geomorphological historical landslide inventory maps are an invaluable source of information for many research topics and applications. Their systematic preparation worldwide has been advised by many researchers as it may foster our knowledge on landslides, their spatial and temporal distribution, their potential interaction with the built environment, their contribution to landscape dynamics, and their response to climate change in the past. Due to the extreme variability of the morphological and radiometric elements that can reveal historical landslides, geomorphological historical landslide inventory maps are produced by expert interpretation, which makes it a time-consuming and expensive process, which often discourages wide-area mapping activities. In this paper we present a new geomorphological historical landslide inventory map for a 1460 km² area in the Daunia Apennines, the north-western sector of the Apulia (Puglia) region, in southern Italy. The inventory contains 17 437 landslides classified according to relative age, type of movement, and estimated depth. Landslides were mapped according to rigorous and reproducible criteria applied by two teams of expert photo interpreters to two sets of stereoscopic aerial photographs taken in 1954/55 and 2003. The dataset consists of a digital archive publicly available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.942427 (Cardinali et al., 2022).

The paper describes the multitemporal landslide inventory map prepared for the urban areas of Motta Montecorvino and Volturino, two municipalities located in the Southern Apennines (Apulia Region, Italy). These territories show a high propensity to landslides of different types and magnitude, which periodically interfere with the anthropic structures and infrastructures. For the study area, the spatial and temporal distribution of landslides is detected for the period between 1954 and 2003, through the visual interpretation of multiple sets of black and white digital stereoscopic aerial photographs at different scales. The analysis reveals locally high frequency of landslide occurrence and built-up areas on existing landslides, either on the body or on the crown areas. In particular, we show that over the years new residential areas were developed despite the presence of large old mass movements.