Landslides in Semiarid and Arid Climates

MOREIRAS, S.M.; SEPÚLVEDA, S.A.

Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences

Elsevier

Año: 2022; p. 27 - 48

Arid and semi-arid complex environments display particular characteristics with an ensemble of different factors that can facilitate slope failures and mass movement. Poor soil development, intense physical weathering, intense storms, droughts, and wind particles deposition in these climatic environments provide the stage on which the landslides are either the end results thereof or active participants of land denudation. Even though diverse types of landslides have been described in these extreme and complex landscapes, debris flows are the main terrain modeling processes at the present. Extreme runoff triggered by heavy and intense precipitations has been widely described in deserts and drylands worldwide. The purpose of this chapter is to provide diversity and nature of those common mass movements generated in these arid environments emphasizing the role that these processes presently have in the landscape evolution of these widely disperse environments on the globe.