Critical environmental factors affecting mountain geohazards in a warming climate in Southwest China

作者：Xiaoming Xu, Peng Cui, Xueqin Zhang · 发表于：Advances in Climate Change Research · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1016/j.accre.2024.07.006 · 被引用次数：8 · 研究领域：Landslides and related hazards、Cryospheric studies and observations、Climate change and permafrost

Environmental factors are essential input variables for susceptibility assessment models of mountain geohazards. However, the existing literature provides a limited understanding of the relative contribution of these factors to the occurrence of geohazards with a warming climate, posing tremendous challenges for risk management in mountainous areas. Ya'an city is susceptible to hazards because of its steep terrain, abundant precipitation and active seismic activity. In this regard, we utilise the GeoDetector model to extract critical environmental factors affecting the spatial patterns of mountain geohazards (i.e., landslide, debris flow and rockfall) in Southwest China. The analysis indicates that the factors with the highest explanatory power for the spatial distribution of landslides, debris flows, and rockfalls are soil property, extreme precipitation and extreme temperature, respectively. Notably, we revealed the synergistic effects among factors given their larger q-value than individual ones. We further explored the responses of mountain geohazards to climate change, including the rising temperature and precipitation, because the frequent occurrence of mountain geohazards is closely related to a warming climate. The variation in snow water equivalent caused by antecedent snowfall and snowdrifts acts as a crucial indicator for geohazards, highlighting the significance of snow and wind observations in meteorological nowcasting and disaster prewarning. We disclose the phe...