Improving basin scale shallow landslide modelling using reliable soil thickness maps

Soil thickness is a well-known factor controlling shallow landsliding. Notwithstanding, its spatial organisation over large areas is poorly understood, and in basin scale slope analyses it is often established using simple methods. In this paper, we apply five different soil thickness models in two test sites, and we use the obtained soil thickness maps to feed a slope stability model. Validation quantifies how errors in soil thickness influence the resulting factor of safety and points out which method grants the best results. In particular, in our cases, slope-derived soil thickness patterns produced the worst slope stability assessment, while the use of reliable soil thickness maps obtained by means of a more complex geomorphologically indexed model improved shallow landslides modelling. © 2011 The Author(s).