Seismic amplification effects and rock falls instability at Casentino Historical City site (AQ)

The 2009 L’Aquila earthquake (5.9 ML) boosted seismic microzonation studies within the South-East part of the Aterno Valley where seismic Intensities higher than 6 MCS have been recognized. During this seismic event several towns and villages were threatened by multiple co-seismic phenomena (local amplification, liquefaction, landslide). The Italian guidelines for seismic microzonation do not clearly suggest any procedure to combine multiple co-seismic effects although a few scientists are currently developing procedures to manage multiple hazards and risks (Liu et al., 2015 and references herein). The main aim of this study is to deal with two interfering co-seismic effects, namely the local seismic response LSR and the seismically induced landslides SL. To this end, LSR analyses carried out by a finite element method commercial code RSL2D (Stacec, 2015) are planned to be combined to the seismically-induced rock sliding and falling at the study site of Casentino (located within Sant’Eusanio Forconese district, L’Aquila province). The scenario seismic event considered hereafter is the 6th April 2009 L’Aquila earthquake.