Landslide Fatality Occurrence: A Systematic Review of Research Published between January 2010 and March 2022

Abstract

Landslides triggered by rainfall kill people worldwide, and frequent extreme events that are expected to be an effect of climate change could exacerbate this problem. This review aims to identify recent research, highlighting both the dynamics of landslide accidents and the characteristics of victims. From SCOPUS and WOS databases, using the PRISMA (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis) approach, 25 articles written in English, published in the January 2010–March 2022 period and focused on landslide fatalities, were mined. The selected articles recognized a worldwide underestimation of landslide fatalities and analyzed landslide mortality from three perspectives, indicating the importance of this topic for a multidisciplinary research community. The papers focused on (a) fatal landslides and their geographic distribution, seasonality, trends, and relationships with socioeconomic indicators; (b) landslide fatalities and their behaviors and the dynamics of accidents; and (c) clinical causes of death or injury types, aiming to improve emergency rescue procedures. The gaps that emerged include (a) the insufficient reuse of valuable fatality databases; (b) the absence of simple take-home messages for citizens, practitioners, schoolteachers, and policymakers, aiming to set educational campaigns and adaptation measures; and (c) the lack of joint research projects between researchers working on landslides and doctors treating victims to provide complete research results that would be able to actually reduce landslide mortality.