Susceptibility to shallow landslides of soil in the municipality of Temoaya, Mexico: multicriteria analysis

owing to the mountainous character of the mexican terrain, as well as the ecological effects of changes in land use, particularly in recent decades, and the occurrence of severe and frequent hydro-meteorological phenomena, the instability of slopes dislodged by precipitation constitutes a major hazard in various regions of the country, among them the municipality of temoaya in the state of mexico. in this municipality, where the mountainous relief formed by poorly consolidated and faulting volcaniclastic deposits favours instability, there are 33 active processes of mass movement, of which thirty -the most important- are shallow soil translational landslides (sstl), one is a debris slide and two are rock falls. the occurrence of sstls is controlled by the character of the volcaniclastic deposits, specifically pyroclastic flows of blocks, ash and pumice; because these are permeable materials they favour infiltration; if the subjacent material is impermeable or of low permeability, water accumulates on the sub-horizontal lithological contact and transforms into a flow that leads to the instability of the overlying material. a map of susceptibility to sstls was generated by means of a multicriteria analysis. according to the map produced, 15% of the municipality is very highly susceptible to landslides, 35% is highly susceptible, 30% shows medium susceptibility, and the remaining 20% has low or very low susceptibility.