MIARIA project: from real time landslide monitoring system to dynamic risk assessment (Canaria Valley, Switzerland)

MIARIA is a project funded as part of the Italy/Switzerland Operational Programme for Trans-frontier Cooperation 2007–2013. The project aims to: i) develop innovative technologies for landslide areas monitoring and ii) generate dynamic integrated risk scenarios, with particular regard to domino effects. Within this frame the Institute of Earth Sciences (IST-SUPSI) is responsible for the landslide phenomena modelling in the case study of the Canaria valley, a region located in Switzerland close to the St. Gotthard corridor, a critical highway and railroad connection between Northern and Southern Europe. Among the different instabilities characterizing the valley, the most threatening phenomenon is an active complex landslide; its last collapse blocked the main river of the valley causing the generation and breaking of a natural dam and a consequent flooding downstream; in that case the consequences were very limited but currently new possible collapses could increase the risk of damages to houses and transport infrastructures. With the present work the authors want to illustrate the modelling chaining process that allowed to obtain a new risk scenario and in particular: i) the identification of the new unstable area thickness through the FLAC model, ii) the simulation of the possible collapse performed with MassMov2D and iii) the simulation of the dam break and flooding conducted with the FLO-2D model.