A regional rockfall database: the Eastern Alps test site

Landslide databases are essential tools for risk assessment. In the Italian portion of the South-Eastern Alps these archives are managed by the Veneto Region and by the provinces of Bolzano and Trento, as part of the Italian Inventory of Landslides. About 750 rockfall events recorded in these archives were checked, put together and completed to create a new integrated database. Information on 24 new rockfalls were added from different research sources. Descriptive statistic shows that the most affected slopes with the highest frequency of rockfall are the southern ones. The distribution of rockfalls during the year presents three peaks in March, June and November. The most commonly affected lithologies are massive dolomites, effusive rocks and mica schists. Roads proved to be the most commonly involved feature. The hypsographic curves obtained from the DEMs of the provinces of Belluno, Bolzano and Trento have shown that the different areas potentially affected by periglacial processes experience rockfalls during summer and autumn, thus representing a risk to tourists and hikers. This study is the first attempt to collate and extend the available information in the various rockfall databases in the Eastern Italian Alps, with the aim at creating uniform data collection for the whole Alpine range. © 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg