Landslide susceptibility assessment: a case study from Beskid Niski Mts., Carpathians, Poland.

This study involves the integration of multiple thematic datasets for landslide susceptibility assessment through spatial prediction models. The proposed methodology has been applied in the Bystrzanka-Biczyska area (Beskid Niski Mts., Carpathians Mts., Poland), characterised by a very high density of landslides. The susceptibility assessment has been based on an indirect bivariate statistical analysis ("Weights of Evidence" modelling technique, Bonham-Carter et al., 1989) performed in order to predict the occurrence of an event (landslide) where well-known evidences (predictor variables) are available. According to the relative importance of each evidence, a landslide susceptibility map has been produced. Observing final prediction results, it is concluded that the susceptibility map gives useful information both on present instability of the area and its possible future evolution in agreement with the morphological evolution of the area.