Landslide hazard zoning at regional level – Valcea County case study

In recent years the severity of the extreme meteorological phenomena significantly increased,i.e. heavy rains which led to historical floods on the most part of the hydrographical basins of Romania,mostly during 2005 and 2010. These abnormal meteorological phenomena reactivated a great number oflandslides. Therefore, risk managers, in order to urge the landslide inventory at the whole country level,launched hazard maps in terms of Law no 575/2001 regarding the “Plan of the national territorydevelopment, the Fifth section – Areas of natural hazards”. This means risk maps of Romania for areasprone to natural hazards (floods, landslides and earthquakes), as well as the exact geographical andadministrative localization of these areas, including the indication of the risk level of producing thespecific hazards. The present paper presents the methodology of hazard zoning at the local and regionallevel, including the parameters used to draw down the thematic maps for inventory and representation ofthe active landslide for the whole territory. As a case study area, Valcea County was chosen for the largenumber of damages due to the landslide effects. Of them, the Ocnele Mari case is noteworthy as anatural reservation of diapire salts massifs, affected by collapse due to salt dissolution by runoff waterand overexploitation by water injection.