In the research field on landslide hazard assessment for natural risk prediction and mitigation, it is necessary to know the characteristics of the triggering factors, such as rainfall and earthquakes, as well as possible. This work aims to generate and compare the basic information on rainfall events triggering landslides in two areas with different climate and geological settings: the Loja Basin in southern Ecuador and the southern part of the province of Granada in Spain. In addition, this paper gives preliminary insights on the correlation between these rainfall events and major climate cycles affecting each of these study areas. To achieve these objectives, the information on previous studies on these areas was compiled and supplemented to obtain and compare Critical Rainfall Threshold (CRT). Additionally, a seven-month series of accumulated rainfall and mean climate indices were calculated from daily rainfall and monthly climate, respectively. This enabled the correlation between both rainfall and climate cycles. For both study areas, the CRT functions were fitted including the confidence and prediction bounds, and their statistical significance was also assessed. However, to overcome the major difficulties to characterize each landslide event, the rainfall events associated with every landslide are deduced from the spikes showing uncommon return periods cumulative rainfall. Thus, the method used, which has been developed by the authors in previous research, avoids the need to preselect specific rainfall durations for each type of landslide. The information extracted from the findings of this work show that for the wetter area of Ecuador, CRT presents a lower scale factor indicating that lower values of accumulated rainfall are needed to trigger a landslide in this area. This is most likely attributed to the high soil saturation. The separate analysis of the landslide types in the case of southern Granada show very low statistical significance for translational slides, as a low number of data could be identified. However, better fit was obtained for rock falls, complex slides, and the global fit considering all landslide types with R² values close to one. In the case of the Loja Basin, the ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) cycle shows a moderate positive correlation with accumulated rainfall in the wettest period, while for the case of the south of the province of Granada, a positive correlation was found between the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) and the WeMO (Western Mediterranean Oscillation) climate time series and the accumulated rainfall. This correlation is highlighted when the aggregation (NAO + WeMO) of both climate indices is considered, reaching a Pearson coefficient of –0.55, and exceeding the average of the negative values of this combined index with significant rates in the hydrological years showing a higher number of documented landslides.

GNSS observations constitute the main tool to reveal Earth’s crustal deformations in order to improve the identification of geological hazards. The Ecuadorian Andes were formed by Nazca Plate subduction below the Pacific margin of the South American Plate. Active tectonic-related deformation continues to present, and it is constrained by 135 GPS stations of the RENAGE and REGME deployed by the IGM in Ecuador (1995.4–2011.0). They show a regional ENE displacement, increasing towards the N, of the deformed North Andean Sliver in respect to the South American Plate and Inca Sliver relatively stable areas. The heterogeneous displacements towards the NNE of the North Andean Sliver are interpreted as consequences of the coupling of the Carnegie Ridge in the subduction zone. The Dolores–Guayaquil megashear constitutes its southeastern boundary and includes the dextral to normal transfer Pallatanga fault, that develops the Guayaquil Gulf. This fault extends northeastward along the central part of the Cordillera Real, in relay with the reverse dextral Cosanga–Chingual fault and finally followed by the reverse dextral Sub-Andean fault zone. While the Ecuadorian margin and Andes is affected by ENE–WSW shortening, the easternmost Manabí Basin located in between the Cordillera Costanera and the Cordillera Occidental of the Andes, underwent moderate ENE–WSW extension and constitutes an active fore-arc basin of the Nazca plate subduction. The integration of the GPS and seismic data evidences that highest rates of deformation and the highest tectonic hazards in Ecuador are linked: to the subduction zone located in the coastal area; to the Pallatanga transfer fault; and to the Eastern Andes Sub-Andean faults.