Influence of precipitation on landslide activity in Southwestern Bulgaria in the context of climate change

Abstract

The article analyzes the annual precipitation in the region of Southwest Bulgaria for the period 1991-2021 and the relationship between precipitation and the activation of landslides in the region. For this purpose, publicly available materials from the website of Geozashtita EOOD – Pernik (http://gz-pernik.mrrb.government.bg/landslide/) and from the website https://www.stringmeteo.com/ were used. The increased intensity of rainfall in some months is also the reason for the increase in the number of new landslides, which often creates significant problems for the operation and maintenance of the Bulgarian transport infrastructure. The main results of the study show that during the analyzed period there was an increase in months with extreme precipitation, and this is largely related to the global changes in the Earth's climate. The presented results provide an opportunity for conducting further studies linking climate change with the development of hazardous geological processes, and the negative impact of these phenomena on the road infrastructure emphasizes the need to develop dynamic models for obtaining information in real time.