New Advances and Challenges for Numerical Modeling of Landslides of the Flow Type

Landslides of the flow types represent a worldwide natural hazard whose consequences have been largely increasing in the last decades, despite the huge efforts of the International Organizations and Scientific Communities which can provide either highly interdisciplinary approaches or enhanced sector-based studies. The former must include expertise from geology, geotechnical engineering, social sciences and economics if landslide risk reduction is pursued as final goal while the latter include detailed geotechnical analyses to simulate the multiple stages characterizing the landslides of the flow-type. Within this framework, numerical modeling has been playing an increasing role for engineering-based decisions. The present paper outlines some difficult topics recently solved or firstly tacked through advanced numerical modeling. For the failure stage, distinct modeling alternatives are applied to a relevant case study. For the post-failure stage, an enhanced numerical approach is provided to understand and forecast the transition from a slide to a flow. Furthermore, a novel numerical approach is applied for evaluating the propagation heights and velocities. Finally, open issues are outlined and possible future research developments are indicated.