Wealth and land-cover change govern landslide fatalities on world’s mountains


Fidan S., Görüm T., Akbaş A., Ekberzade B., Ozturk U.

SCIENCE ADVANCES, cilt.12, sa.15, ss.1-5, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 12 Sayı: 15
  • Basım Tarihi: 2026
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1126/sciadv.aec2739
  • Dergi Adı: SCIENCE ADVANCES
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Scopus, Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Compendex, INSPEC, MEDLINE, Directory of Open Access Journals, Nature Index
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.1-5
  • Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Despite the common perception, most fatal landslides occur in human-transformed environments. Even on steep terrain, anthropogenic disturbances may fundamentally modulate landslides. Most of our knowledge regarding landslide-human interaction is restricted to local models or regional heuristic assessments based on empirical evidence. In this study, we used land-use–land-cover change as a metric to explain human pressure as a preconditioning factor for fatal landslide occurrences to provide a global overview. We addressed countries’ income levels, populations, exposure, and a dataset of ≈60 years of land-use–land-cover changes with mountainous landmasses to compare landslides and fatalities across 46 countries. Our statistical analyses show that land-use–land-cover changes have a substantially greater influence on the density of fatal landslides and landslide fatalities than physical factors such as topography and precipitation, especially in lower-income countries. We observed a marginal landslide impact when the land-use–land-cover change was low, regardless of the income class. Our results emphasize that effective land-use–land-cover planning is critical to decreasing landslide fatalities, especially in low- and lower-middle–income countries.