Mass movements in Germany – contributions to the landslide susceptibility modeling

The presentation provides an overview about the project “Mass Movements in Germany (MBiD)” jointly implemented by six State Geological Surveys and the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources in the period from 2018 to 2020. The objective pursued in this intervention was to review the practical feasibility of the spatial assessment (modeling) of the landslide susceptibility in Germany both at regional and nationwide level. The chosen approach took into consideration the specific framework conditions with regard to the availability and application of official information to evaluate the spatial probability of this hazard in Germany. Focusing on both rotational and translational landslides as well as on rockfall, fourteen modeling case studies were performed in different natural environments to explore limits and possibilities. The methods applied representing state of the art assessment tools covering bi- and multivariate statistical, heuristic, physical and machine learning methods. The necessary model parameters were mainly deduced from nationwide thematic geoinformation layers that are featured by a high degree of consistency. Based on the case studies, conclusions on the applicability of the methods, the requirements for the recorded mass movement inventory, and the use of the selected parameters and parameter classes and their validity were drawn. The results of the case studies culminated in the development of practical solutions and recommendations (workflows), which include the selection of suitable methods according to requirements and the development of reproducible approaches for modeling the regional landslide susceptibility at different scales.