A regional real time landslide warning system based on spatially variable rainfall thresholds

In the Tuscany region (23,000 km2, Central Italy) landslides triggered by rainfall are a recurring phenomenon. We set up a regional warning system for the prediction and monitoring of the occurrence of landslides, which is based on statistical intensity–duration rainfall thresholds. Since a single regional threshold would be affected by a too large uncertainty, the region was partitioned into 25 alert zones and for each of them an independent set of thresholds was defined analyzing with an automated and objective procedure the rainfall measurements connected to the triggering of 2,132 past landslides.