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Geomorphology 99 (2008) 246 253

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The origin of shallow landslides in Moravia (Czech Republic)

in the spring of 2006
Michal Bl , Ivo Mller
Faculty of Sciences, Palack University in Olomouc, t. Svobody 26, Olomouc, 779 00, Czech Republic
Received 5 July 2007; received in revised form 7 November 2007; accepted 13 November 2007
Available online 21 November 2007

Abstract
At the end of March 2006, the Czech Republic (CZ) witnessed a fast thawing of an unusually thick snow cover in conjunction with massive
rainfall. Most watercourses suffered floods, and more than 90 shallow landslides occurred in the Moravian region of Eastern CZ, primarily in nonforested areas. This region, geologically part of the Outer Western Carpathians, is prone to landslides because the bedrock is highly erodible
Mesozoic and Tertiary flysch.
The available meteorological data (depth of snow, water equivalent of the snow, cumulative rainfall, air and soil temperatures) from five local
weather stations were used to construct indices quantitatively describing the snow thaw. Among these, the Total Cumulative Precipitation (TCP)
combines the amount of water from both thawing snow and rainfall. This concurrence of rain and runoff from snow melt was the decisive factor in
triggering the landslides in the spring.
The TCP index was applied to data of snow thaw periods for the last 20 years, when no landslides were recorded. This was to establish the safe
threshold of TCP without landslides. The calculated safe threshold value for the region is ca. 100 mm of water delivered to the soil during the
spring thaw (corresponding to ca. 11 mm day 1). In 2006, 10% of the landslides occurred under or at 100 mm of TCP. The upper value of 155 mm
covered all of the landslides.
2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Shallow landslides; Antecedent rainfall; Snow thaw; Landslide threshold; Outer Western Carpathians

1. Introduction
Shallow landslides in the Outer Western Carpathians are
almost always associated with extreme rainfall (e.g. Gil, 1997;
Krej et al., 2002; Kudrna et al., 2003). In the spring of 2006,
the thawing of the thick snow cover occurred together with
massive rainfall. This article attempts to uncover the causes of
the resulting landslide disaster, and to establish the threshold
amount of water from snowmelt and rainfall that when soaked
into the soil, will trigger shallow landslides.
For evaluating the rainfall threshold for landsliding, various
modifications of the Antecedent Rainfall Index (ARI) and the
Antecedent Daily Rainfall Model have been used (e.g. Caine,
1980; Glade et al., 2000; Godt et al., 2006). These usually
consider only liquid precipitation. However, the situation under
Corresponding author. Tel.: +420 585 634 177; fax: +420 585 634 002.
E-mail address: michal.bil@upol.cz (M. Bl).
0169-555X/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2007.11.004

study here is unique in that the melt of the snow cover and the
liquid rainfall are combined. The snow cover can be regarded as
a reservoir of water with a known content. As the depth of snow
and its water equivalent are measured on a regular basis, these
data can be used for calculating the total amount of water
delivered into the soil. Gerstel et al. (1997) discussed extremely
fast snow thawing accompanied by rainfall, followed by
landslides in Washington State, USA.
In ascertaining the rainfall threshold for landsliding, most methods take the known dates of landslide occurrences as their input
parameter. Usually several episodes with a substantial number of
landslides are considered. Although these relatively simple models
of water balance are not substantiated physically, they are still
feasible for initial approximation. The same is true for various other
indices describing landslide occurrence such as the Cumulative
Event Rainfall (Corominas and Moya, 1999). Most of the work on
rainfall threshold determination has been done in Italy (Govi and
Sorzana, 1980; Reichenbach et al., 1998; Calcaterra et al., 2000;

M. Bl, I. Mller / Geomorphology 99 (2008) 246253

Aleotti, 2004; Giannecchini, 2005) and Spain (e.g. Corominas and

Moya, 1999). The latest work on the rainfall threshold for
landsliding outside Europe includes the work of Gabet et al.
(2004) and Claessens et al. (2006, 2007). Some studies in the
Tertiary AlpineCarpathian Mountain Ranges also define a rainfall
threshold for landslides based on ARI (Moser and Hohensinn,
1983; Cancelli and Nova, 1985; Pasuto and Silvano, 1998). For the
Polish Flysch Carpathians, Gil (1997) states that if the rainfall
amounts to 200300 mm within 2040 days, shallow landslides
are to be expected. However, these previous works did not consider
precipitation from snowmelt as a potential triggering factor. Therefore, we modified ARI into the more general index of the Total
Cumulative Precipitation (TCP).
2. Regional setting
The Eastern part of the Czech Republic lies in the Outer
Western Carpathians where the bedrock is Tertiary flysch in the
Paleocene and Miocene Magura nappe system dominated by the
Vsetn beds (vbenick et al., 1997). These rocks are a mixture
of claystone, siltstone, sandstone and conglomerate. With the
exception of some sandstone layers that stand out as solitary
outcrops, the rocks are weak and produce a relatively thick
colluvium (Krej et al., 2002).
Most of the landslides in the spring of 2006 occurred in an area
of about 1000 km2, within the cities of Zln, Uhersk Brod and
Valask Klobouky (Fig. 1). In this area, the maximum altitude is
835 m, minimum is 200 m, and average is 407 m. Higher elevations occur in the south east at the border with Slovakia, with
mountain ridges reaching 650800 m. Ridges in the central part
are 550700 m, most of the area is 300550 m and the lowest

247

altitudes occur in the west close to the floodplain of the Morava

River (200300 m). The relief between the ridges and the valley
bottoms is largest in the east, up to 400 m. The area is moderately
sloped with the average slope being at 9 and with slopes of 4 to
13 making up 70% of the area. The maximum slope is 42. These
morphological data were taken from a DEM with a cell size of
20 20 m. According to Tolasz (2007), the area had a mean
annual temperature of 79 C and an annual precipitation of 600
800 mm during the 19612000 period. Rainfall in March to April
amounted to 4050 mm with a snow cover recorded for five to ten
days in early March on average. A snow cover was usually not
recorded in April.
Shallow landslides are slope deformations that affect only a
colluvial cover. The depth of a failure surface corresponds to the
border between the colluvium and the bedrock, and thus depends on the thickness of the colluvium. Landslides in the study
area accessible for field measurement had a depth up to 4 m.
The average depth was only 1.0 m. In the Outer Western
Carpathians deep-seated landslides with depths of 20 m or more
can also be found (Krej et al., 2002). Of all the landslides from
the spring of 2006, only one can be classified as deep-seated. A
typical shallow landslide would be 35100 m long, 2070 m
wide, with an average slope of 12, and located at a footslope.
The winter of 2005/06 was exceptional in terms of a very thick
snow cover. The snow kept accumulating beginning in December
of 2005. As the air temperature stayed below zero until the end of
March, there was no partial thawing, and thus the water equivalent
of the snow (SWE), particularly in the middle elevations, reached its
highest level since 1961 (Sandev, 2006). The thick snow cover
stayed until the end of March when higher air temperatures and
heavy rainfall appeared due to changes in air mass circulation over

Fig. 1. Study area. Black dots landslides in the spring of 2006, flags weather stations, LU Luhaovice, VI Vizovice, HL Horn Lhota, VK Valask
Klobouky, ST ttn.

248

M. Bl, I. Mller / Geomorphology 99 (2008) 246253

Europe. Until March 25, 2006, an anticyclone prevented warm air

from spreading over the territory of the CZ. The first significant rain
(N 10 mm) fell on March 26, which was followed on March 2829,
by the passage of a strong frontal system over Central Europe. It
yielded up to 35 mm of rainfall. The consequence was major
flooding throughout the CZ and more than 90 landslides in Moravia
(Fig. 2).
The first landslides occurred at the end of the spring thaw.
More slides followed in response to the rainfall. The dates of 28
out of 90 landslides, with known dates of origin, are summarized in Table 1. The first landslide was recorded on March 27
and the number of landslides peaked on March 29. The last
recorded landslides occurred on April 4. This indicates that the
threshold conditions for landslides varied, reflecting the local
variability of snow cover and rainfall. The dates of origin of the
other landslides are not known exactly but within a range of
several days. It is safe to say that the vast majority of landslides
with known dates of origin took place before the end of April.
This was the period without snow and before the onset of rain at
the beginning of May (Fig. 3).
Immediately after a larger number of landslides had been
reported, their documentation began, mostly by workers of the
Czech Geological Survey. Within a month, more than 80 slides
were located, and the rest was reported later.
3. Data and methods
Five weather stations are located close to the landslides (Fig. 1)
and their records were used to give account of the meteorological
conditions of the landslide event.
The data are in the form of time series covering the period of
17 days from March 20 to April 5, and capturing the whole
landslide event. From the available data we attempted to define
several indices that describe basically the same phenomenon as
ARI but include the effect of snow cover. In the natural setting

Table 1
Landslides with known dates of origin
Date

3/27

3/28

3/29

3/30

3/31

4/1

4/2

4/3

4/4

Sum

Frequency

28

of the study area, snow thaw occurs within several days. As the
point of reference we took the last day when a continuous snow
cover was recorded, since small patches of snow can survive in
shaded locations for a long time.
We employed the following three indices.
Snow thaw period, which begins when the average daily
temperature rises above 1 C and ends seven days after the
loss of a continuous snow cover. The beginning is thus
located within days when the day-time temperature is above
0 C and freezing occurs overnight. The average daily temperature is calculated as the sum of temperatures at 7 a.m.,
2 p.m. and twice the temperature at 9 p.m. divided by four.
This is the standard procedure used by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, CHMI. The end of the snow thaw
period is not defined as the last day of continuous snow cover
but extra seven days are added because snow can remain in
isolated patches, and runoff water stays in pools on the soil
surface, gradually infiltrating into the ground.
Snow Thaw Rate (STR) is the average decrement (in mm
day 1) of the snow water equivalent (SWE) from the beginning of the snow thaw period until the last day of continuous snow cover. Since the logs of SWE are available only
once a week, the exact value at the beginning of the snow
thaw period may not be known, and STR suffers from this
uncertainty. In addition, an auxiliary index of the thawing
rate was calculated from the snow depth (SD) (in cm day 1).
However, the latter index is not precise because of the
settling or compaction of snow with time.

Fig. 2. Cumulative rainfall (mm) and snow depth (SD; cm) during the 2006 landslide episode at the station of Luhaovice, March 20April 5.

M. Bl, I. Mller / Geomorphology 99 (2008) 246253

249

Fig. 3. Pentades of rainfall, snow depth (SD), Total Cumulative Precipitation (TCP) and change in SD at the Vizovice station.

Total Cumulative Precipitation (TCP) is the sum of SWE and

the measured rainfall during the snow that period (in mm).
This is an estimate of the depth of water supplied to the soil
surface during the period. In 2006, the thaw period
(approximately March 20April 4, depending on a weather
station) covers all of the landslides with known dates (28
slides). For better comparability (because of non-equidistant
snow thaw periods), the daily average TCP in mm day 1
(defined as TCP divided by the number of days from the
record of SWE to the end of the snow thaw period) gives an
average rate of water flux into the soil surface.
In order to determine the threshold TCP value for landslides,
all the above-mentioned parameters were calculated for two
selected weather stations over the past 20 years, and the results
were compared. Data from these two representative stations
were used in the following analyses, because all five stations
recorded similar values.
4. Results
4.1. Effects of precipitation and snow melt in 2006
Since the end of the 2006 landslide episode, the question of
triggering factors has been attracting attention. One of our first
hypotheses was that the rapid thaw of a large amount of snow
occurred over frozen soil into which infiltration rates would be
low. Frozen water in soil forms particles of ice. After melting
these ice particles increase the water content of soil and the
instability of the slopes. However, soil temperature data show
that the temperatures at all depths remained above 0 C, and
thus that hypothesis was rejected.
The decisive factor for the occurrence of landslides in the
spring 2006, was the combination of the effects of rainfall and
high values of SWE. The precipitation chart at the station in

Vizovice (Fig. 3) over the months following the slides indicates

that the heavy rainfall alone was not responsible for the
landslides. Although rainfall in late April and early May 2006 as
well as at the end of May was comparable to that during the
spring thaw, no landslides were reported during that time.
Adding SWE to the rainfall gives a value for the spring thaw
period that exceeds the rainfall of the later periods by more than
70 mm.
4.2. Determination of the TCP threshold from 20-year data
In order to determine the threshold value of TCP for
landsliding, it was necessary to compare the landslide event of
2006 to the snow thaw periods in the preceding years. The
weather stations in Luhaovice (years 19882005) and
Vizovice (years 19862005) were selected, as they are located
in the central part of the region. For each year and each station,
the dates of the snow thaw period were determined based on the
criteria previously established.
As no similar landslide episode was recorded in the landslide
inventory, the data from previous years serve as a reference for
defining a safe limit of TCP, under which landslides are
relatively rare. Over the past 20 years, the snow that period at
the stations in Luhaovice and Vizovice lasted 1020 days and
occurred sometime between December and April.
Tables 2 and 3 show that the year of 2006 was extreme at
both stations in terms of rainfall, SD and SWE. The value of
TCP reached 143.5 mm (STR = 9.0 mm day 1) in Luhaovice
and 163.1 mm (STR = 10.2 mm day 1) in Vizovice. At the same
time SWE in Luhaovice was 78.4 mm and 114 mm in
Vizovice. The snow thaw period of 2005 was also rich in snow
when SD, SWE and STR at both stations were comparable to
their 2006 values. STR appears to be slightly higher for 2006,
but as SWE is recorded only once a week, this index is not very
accurate. However, this comparison suggests that a large value

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M. Bl, I. Mller / Geomorphology 99 (2008) 246253

Table 2
Station Luhaovice weather conditions during Snow Thaw Periods 19882006
Year

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

Spring Thaw Period (STP) [days]

Rainfall [mm]
Snow Depth (SD) [cm]
Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) [mm]
Snow Thaw Rate (STR) [mm day 1]
Total Cumulative Precipitation (TCP) [mm]
Daily average TCP [mm day 1]

12
16.9
8
17.0
4.3
32.7
2.7

15
8.2
11
14.0
2.3
17.5
1.2

10
21.3
5
10.5
10.5
31.8
3.2

10
0.3
11
22.4
5.0
22.7
1.9

20
21.2
12
44.1
4.0
62.4
3.1

14
26.0
17
23.0
11.5
48.1
3.4

11
21.2
22
31.2
7.8
52.1
4.3

13 12
25.2 8.9
13
5
26.2 12.1
6.6 1.7
37.1 21.4
2.9 1.4

96

97

98

15 13
20.7 6.1
16
6
27.7 9.0
6.9 3.0
48.4 15.1
3.2 1.2

99

00

01

02

14
39.0
20
33.3
11.1
65.4
4.7

20
38.5
22
44.9
4.5
64.7
3.2

12
25.4
13
16.0
3.2
41.4
3.2

17 12
19.0 0.3
23
6
45.4 13.5
5.7 1.9
55.4 13.8
3.3 0.9

03

04

05

15
6.8
15
33.1
5.5
37.2
2.5

20
16
6.7 65.1
36
33
93.1 78.4
7.8
9.8
99.8 143.5
5.0
9.0

06

Daily average TCP is defined as TCP divided by number of days since the record of SWE to the end of STP.

of SD, at the level of 2005 or 2006 alone, is insufficient to

provoke landslides. As noted in the previous section, rainfall
alone is not a sufficient cause of landslides either. Therefore, the
cause of landsides was the combination of the thick snow and
heavy rainfall during the spring thaw. Through a comparison of
TCP in 2006 and that in the previous years, we can reach a
tentative conclusion that the safe threshold of TCP for landslides in this region is approximately 85 mm or an average daily
value of 59 mm day 1.
A statistical analysis of the 20-year record (Table 4) shows how
exceptional the year 2006 was. The extreme value of TCP in 2006
causes a substantial increase in both the arithmetic mean and the
standard deviation of TCP, SWE and rainfall. We estimated
whether this outlier fits to the series of previous records using a
Gaussian model. For this analysis we used the TCP records from
the Luhaovice station because the Vizovice station gave very
similar data and would yield identical conclusions.
Since the sample size (N = 20) is rather small, several tests of
normality were performed. The first of these was based on empirical moments. For all records up to 2006, skewness 3 is 1.589
and kurtosis 4 is 5.610. After appropriate standardizing, the test
statistics in both cases exceed the critical value u(.05) = 1.96 for
standard normal distribution. However, for data up to 2005, we get
3 = 0.782 and 4 = 3.489, which does not reject the null hypothesis
for normal distribution. D'Agostino (1970) and D'Agostino et al.
(1990) suggested a modification of the test of normality based on
statistical moments, which can be used with quite small sample
sizes: n N 8 for skewness and n 20 for kurtosis. The modified test
confirmed non-rejection of normality for the data until 2005 but

rejection for the data until 2006. This conclusion was also validated
by the so-called omnibus test (D'Agostino et al., 1990) that uses
both empirical moments simultaneously.
Second, the Kolmogorov goodness-of-fit test was performed.
It takes better account of tails of a frequency distribution and is
also recommended for use with small sample sizes (Lehmann,
1999, p.341). The maximum difference between the empirical
and theoretical (Gaussian) distribution functions (with the
parameters and 2 estimated from the data) for records including 2006 is 0.185, leading to non-rejection of normality on
0.05-level (the non-rejection being by a narrow margin, though).
The results of all the above-performed tests do not contradict the
interpretation that TCP fits the normal model and the value of
2006 deviates from the model in the sense that it constitutes a
rare observation originating from the tail of the distribution.
The TCP values up to 2005 show no linear increasing or
linear decreasing time trend (t = 1.63 in a straight-line fit) and
thus only a constant value of the average may be used to express
a trend. The sign test on residuals from the average did not detect
any systematic error (the test statistic 0.04). Therefore the
residuals can be considered random and the model of constant
trend is applicable. The 95-percent confidence interval for the
mean value, calculated from data until 2006 under normal
model, is [32.69; 63.15].
Assuming a normal distribution N(, 2), we can estimate
the probability of the occurrence of the extreme TCP value in
2006. Estimating the mean as 47.92 and the standard deviation 2 as 998.31, we get P(X 143.5) = 0.0012, that is, the
chance of observing an equal or higher TCP value is 0.12%.

Table 3
Station Vizovice weather conditions during Snow Thaw Periods 19862006
Year

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

00

01

02

03

04

05

Snow Thaw Period

(STP) [days]
Rainfall [mm]
Snow Depth (SD) [cm]
Snow Water Equivalent
(SWE) [mm]
Snow Thaw Rate (STR)
[mm day 1]
Total Cumulative
Precipitation
(TCP) [mm]
Daily average TCP
[mm day 1]

12

14

11

10

10

10

13

14

16

13

15

15

10

12

13

15

11

12

18

7.6 7.9 10.5 5.2 30.4

17
32
10
6
4
25.5 66.4 19.7 11.4 8.6

0.3 7.6 29.0 37.8 33.2 14.4 28.0

6
12
18
24
13
16
13
9.3 17.4 23
30.5 30.4 31.8 26

4.3 11.1 6.6 5.7 8.6

33.1 74.3 30.0 16.6 39.0

1.9 4.4 11.5 7.6 7.6 15.9 6.5 1.2 20.0 16.0 2.0
9.6 19.2 49.7 50.6 50.0 45.8 54.0 16.0 57.0 59.8 28.0

2.4

5.3

2.7

1.7

3.9

0.7

1.5

3.6

3.2

4.2

3.1

3.6

6.1 42.4 31.5 18.0

20.1
7
13
24
discont. 30
8.6 20
48
10
58

1.1

4.8

4.6 2.2

9.7
67.8

4.5

06
16

1.8 4.1 10.0 49.1

5
21
49
32
8
31
87
114

1.3 5.2 10.9 14.3

9.8 37.0 93.8 163.1

0.7

2.6

5.2

10.2

M. Bl, I. Mller / Geomorphology 99 (2008) 246253

Table 4
Basic characteristics of stations Luhaovice and Vizovice from 20-year data

Luhaovice
TCP
[mm]
Vizovice
TCP
[mm]
Luhaovice
SWE
[mm]
Luhaovice
Rainfall
[mm]

Average
until
2005

Average
until
2006

Median Median
until
until
2005
2006

Std.
deviation
until 2005

Std.
deviation
until 2006

42.61

47.92

39.3

41.4

22.13

31.60

42.06

47.82

42.4

45.8

22.56

34.37

28.69

31.31

24.6

26.2

19.99

22.53

17.32

19.83

19.85

20.7

11.54

15.58

251

assumption that SWE in 2006, although rather high, was not

extreme in terms of the previous history.
The agreement in the time-course of the TCP data at the
stations in Vizovice and Luhaovice can be seen both from the
high correlation coefficient .91, and from the two-sample t-test
on equality of mean values. Assuming normality and having
employed Bartlett's test to check the equality of variances at the
two stations (these are the assumptions for the t-test), we get the
test statistic 0.0095. This number is highly insignificant, and
so the mean values of both stations can be considered equal.
Both stations give the same meteorological picture of the area
under investigation.
4.3. TCP threshold in the spring 2006

Next, let us examine the chance of exceeding the past mean

level by calculating the probability that a future observation X

exceeds a k-multiple of the average of the past n observations X n:

P

P X zk
X n P X  k
X n z0




1  U k  1A= r2 1 k 2 =n ;
where k is a given constant (N 0), is the standard normal
distribution function and all the observations are assumed
independent. After substituting the estimated values for and 2
and assuming k = 3.4 (in 2006 the value of TCP was 3.4 times
higher than the antecedent average), we get a probability of 0.0024
for exceeding the k-multiple of the past mean value of TCP.
Similarly, for k = 3.9 this probability in Vizovice is 0.0012. Thus,
both stations are on the order of magnitude 10 3.
Let us now examine SWE and rainfall in 2006 in Luhaovice.
The probability of observing a rainfall of 56.1 mm or higher is
0.0020, and the probability of exceeding the 3.8-multiple of the
antecedent rainfall average is 0.0045. Both numbers were the
same order of magnitude as those for TCP. The respective
probabilities for SWE are 0.018 and 0.022 (for 2.7-multiple of
the previous mean). Here the numbers are one order of magnitude larger than those for TCP. These results support the

Although the climatic data from previous years of other

stations are not available, comparisons among rainfall, snow
and temperature in 2006 indicate that the area under study is
well characterized by records from the stations in Luhaovice
and Vizovice as well as ttn, Horn Lhota and Valask
Klobouky. Table 5 shows the values of the indices for individual
stations. It is evident that differences among stations are not
large. The largest variability is due to SWE, which is measured
only once a week and is usually underestimated (Sandev, 2006).
For the year 2006 we analyzed data from the five stations.
The TCP values at these stations ranged between 120.4 and
176.5 mm (7.5 to 12.6 mm day 1). To obtain a clearer picture of
the relationship between the total amount of available water
during the spring thaw period and landslides, we used the
averaged values of TCP of five stations since March 20. This
was calculated cumulatively from March 27 to April 4 during
which time 28 slides occurred. Fig. 4 illustrates the relationship
between landslides and TCP for the whole study area. From the
distributional curve, the TCP percentiles can be read. For
example, up to the point of 85 mm of TCP (11 mm day 1) only
5% of all slides occurred. A TCP value of 100 mm corresponds
to 10% of slides and 140 mm to 40%. All the landslides fell if
TCP reaches 155 mm.
To predict a future landslide calamity would require the
prediction of TCP, which is beyond the scope of this article.

Table 5
Weather conditions during Snow Thaw Period 2006 for selected stations
Weather station

LU

VI

ST

HL

VK

Elevation [m]
Snow Depth (SD) on March 20 [cm]
Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) on March 20/27[mm]
Discontinuous snow cover/Snow thawed completely [day]
Snow Thaw Rate (STR) from SWE [mm day 1]
Snow Thaw Rate (STR) from SD [cm day 1]
Snow Thaw Period (STP)
Rainfall in STP [mm]
Rainfall March 2629 [mm]
Mean daily temperature in STP [C]
Total Cumulative Precipitation (TCP) [mm]
Daily average TCP [mm day 1]

254
33
78.4/28.5
Mar 28/30
9.8
4.1
Mar 20Apr 4
65.1
50.6
NA
143.5
9.0

315
32
114.0/66.0
Mar 28/29
14.3
4.0
Mar 20Apr 4
49.1
41.9
5.0
163.1
10.2

315
40
137.0/55.0
Mar 29/30
15.2
4.4
Mar 22Apr 5
61.8
42.4
4.9
164.6
11.0

340
30
119.7/0
Mar 26/Apr 5
20.0
5.0
Mar 20Apr 2
57.3
50.0
NA
176.5
12.6

430
36
57.6/33. 2
Mar 30/31
5.8
3.6
Mar 20Apr 6
62.8
47.4
NA
120.4
7.5

LU Luhaovice, VI Vizovice, ST ttn, HL Horn Lhota, VK Valask Klobouky; NA = not available.

252

M. Bl, I. Mller / Geomorphology 99 (2008) 246253

Fig. 4. Relationship between landslide frequency (%) and the Total Cumulative
Precipitation (TCP; mm).

techniques can influence the rainfall records. The standard practice

of the CHMI is to register daily rainfall at 7 a.m. and record it as a
value for the previous day. Data from automatic probes that work
with a differently defined day-span have to be adjusted to make
them comparable to manual readings. Glade et al. (2000) pointed
out the difficulty with this correction.
Our threshold value for shallow landslides (100 mm) is two to
three times lower than that given by Gil (1997) for the Polish
Carpathians where landslides occur with a rainfall of 200300 mm
within 2040 days. In our case, however, an extraordinary event
took place when snow thaw was combined with rainfall during a
shorter period (about 15 days). The threshold value was reached in
about nine days in the study area. Both results are consistent in
terms of the daily average value of TCP (circa 10 mm day 1).
6. Conclusions

However, we might formulate the following tentative statement,

using the TCP percentiles x. Under the assumption that TCP
reaches the level of 2006 or higher during the snow thaw period,
no more than percent of slides will occur at a TCP of x mm
TCP, or beyond x more than (100 ) percent of slides are
possible. That is to say that if y landslides were observed when
TCP reached x, more than (100 / 1)y slides could be
expected. For a given , observed x can serve as an indicator
of the landslide risk, when rain and snowmelt continue
unabated. We suggest using = 10.
The overall conclusion from both the 20-year records and the
2006 data is that the threshold value of TCP, at which extensive
landslides are imminent, is about 100 mm (with the daily
average of approximately 11 mm day 1). In 2006, this threshold
corresponds to the 10th percentile of the observed landslides.
5. Discussion
The above results represent an attempt to establish a threshold
amount of water that has to be delivered into the soil during
snowmelt for landslides to occur, primarily in non-forested areas.
Because only five of the 90 landslides were identified in the
woods, it seems likely that the threshold for landslides in forested
terrain was not exceeded. A slower release of water from the
snow, as is the case in the woods, may play a role here. A forest
usually has its own local climate with smaller fluctuations and
limited sun insolation. Thus the warming of the air and ground
necessary for the snow thaw is not abrupt. Of course, the threshold
is subject to other influencing factors such as geology, relief, soil
types and vegetation. However, we consider these influences of
secondary importance compared to the total amount of water in
the soil during the spring runoff.
With the input data of a small size, due to the limited number of
landslides with known dates of origin, the construction of a
landslide prediction map is impossible. Therefore, the threshold
TCP was given as an average for the five neighboring stations and
not as a specific value for each landslide. Other potential sources of
uncertainty are that rainfall at each weather station does not always
correspond to precipitation in a broader area, that the value of
SWE is difficult to measure and model and that data processing

This article presents the results from analysis of the landslide

episode in March and April of 2006 that affected the eastern part
of the Czech Republic. After the snow thaw and following
rainfall, more than 90 shallow landslides occurred. The cause
for this episode appears to be the concurrence of the thawing of
an extraordinarily thick snow cover and heavy rain, which can
be encompassed in a general index, TCP. For all the landslides
with a known date of origin to occur, it was necessary for TCP
to reach 155 mm within ten days. The lower threshold representing 10% of observed landslides is about 100 mm. These
values are averages for the whole affected area.
Acknowledgements
Our thanks extend to: The Grant Agency of AS CR (GAAV),
project No. KJB301370601, for the financial support; Oldich
Krej and coworkers from the Czech Geological Survey and
Jan Klime from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech
Republic for data on landslides; Vt Voenlek for assistance in
collecting data; Petr tpnek from the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute for assistance in pre-processing the climatic
data; to Luk Macur and Frantiek Kuda for their help with
field work; Nel Caine, Adam Kotarba and Takashi Oguchi for
their comments that helped to improve the quality of the text.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found,
in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2007.11.004.
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