Coupled evolution of a city and landslides
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Urbanisation activities such as landscape modifications are likely the dominant force controlling landslides in cities. Due to the lack of city-scale evidence, the urbanisation-landslide interaction has been commonly studied locally, focusing on individual landslides or road segments. We study the expansion of the metropolitan area of Medellín, Colombia, in 18-time steps since 1770 and explore the empirical relationship between urban expansion, landslide occurrences, and fatalities. Between the 1930s and 2023, Medellín’s population increased from about 120 thousand to 2.5 million inhabitants, while its area expanded from 9 km2 to 107 km2. Landslide occurrences have gradually increased since the 1930s with a volatile positive trend. In contrast, landslide fatalities have been fluctuating without a clear trend. Landslides have predominantly impacted the outskirts of the urban area, causing harm primarily to newly emerged neighbourhoods towards the city’s north, northeast, and west especially since 1960s. Thus, we argue that struggling settlement on Medellín’s margins has likely increased the city’s landslide hazards. Landslides kill 2 to 3.5 times more people per km2 in informal neighbourhoods (categorised as Informal II and III) than in the most hazardous formal neighbourhood type. We recommend that land-use policies assess whether planned future land transformations could alter an area’s inherent hazard status rather than relying solely on existing hazard levels for permits.
Source: Environmental Research Letters
Authors: Sara Nieto, Edier Aristizábal, Ugur Ozturk
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,045
OpenAlex ID: W4408830393