Inventory of landslides triggered by heavy rainfall in the Emilia-Romagna region (Italy) in May 2023

The dataset contains 49103 landslides, that were manually mapped by visual inspection of pre- and post-event satellite images in an area of 8981 km2. Such images are acquired by PlanetScope satellites (https://www.planet.com/) and are provided under an academic license; 3-m resolution multiband tiles are used.

Pre-event imagery refers to the Monthly Global Basemap products provided by Planet, the April 2023 Basemap was used. Post-event images were acquired between 22 May and beginning of June 2023. The cloud-free image closer to the event was used and multi-temporal frames were checked in selected areas (e.g., due to the presence of shadows or unclear images). Images are accessed through the Planet QGIS Plugin.

This dataset supersedes version 1, since it represents its update; major changes include:

mapping over a wider area (8981 vs 5764 km2);

check on the landslides mapped in version 1 located on flat slopes (lower than 5°); removal of polygons associated with river erosion and not due to gravity movements

NOTES ON VERSION 1

landslides were manually mapped at a scale of 1:5.000 by a single operator in a time interval of 5 weeks following the rainfall event; the inventory (version 1.0) was completed on 28 June 2023. Please note that data did not undergo any kind of validation.

Data are provided in shapefile format (coordinate system WGS84 UTM 32N) and in kml format.

The main dataset is the “Emilia landslides” shp/kml file; the “area” shapefile refers to the investigated area; the “riverbank and agricultural fields” files include polygons that were mapped but refer either to river courses having high discharge in the post-event images, or to color changes probably due to farming activities or the evolution of agricultural fields. The “riverbank and agricultural fields” elements should not refer to slope movements, and usage of these data is not recommended, unless a validation is made.