Sustainable Management of Landslides in Ecuador: Leveraging Geophysical Surveys for Effective Risk Reduction

Resumen

The present work explores the use of geophysical surveys as valuable tools applied for the sustainable management of landslides and their studies. The work particularly focuses on Ecuador, an Andean country whose geomorphology and geology are dominated by volcano-sedimentary recent materials, which confers a high susceptibility to landslides. In the last few years, some landslide events have given rise to disasters with many material and life losses. Climatic events, affected by climate change, earthquakes, and human activity, are the main landslide triggers. Geophysical surveys, like seismic refraction, electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), and ground-penetrating radar (GPR), are easy and low-cost techniques that provide valuable and critical sub-surface data. They can help define the failure surface, the delimitation of mobilized materials, the description of the internal structure, and the identification of hydrological and geotechnical parameters that complement any direct survey (like boreholes and laboratory tests). As a result, they can be used in assessing landslide susceptibility and integrated into early warning systems, mapping, and zoning. Some case examples of large landslide events in Ecuador (historical and news) are analyzed, showing how geophysical surveys can be a valuable tool to monitor landslides, mitigate their effects, and/or provide a solution. Combined or isolated geophysical techniques foster sustainable management, improve hazard characterization, help protect the most vulnerable regions, and promote the communities’ information to be safer and more resilient against landslides.