Natural Hazards and Earth System Science www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net 1561-8633 1684-9981 2 1/2 2002 10.5194/nhess-2-3-2002 http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/2/3/2002/ http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/2/3/2002/nhess-2-3-2002.html http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/2/3/2002/nhess-2-3-2002.pdf 3 14 0000-00-00 Impact of mapping errors on the reliability of landslide hazard maps F. Ardizzone M. Cardinali A. Carrara F. Guzzetti P. Reichenbach CNR-IRPI, Via della Madonna Alta 126, I-06128 Perugia, Italy CNR-CSITE, Viale Risorgimento 2, I-40136 Bologna, Italy Identification and mapping of landslide deposits are an intrinsically difficult and subjective operation that requires a great effort to minimise the inherent uncertainty. For the Staffora Basin, which extends for almost 300 km² in the northern Apennines, three landslide inventory maps were independently produced by three groups of geomorphologists. In comparing each map with the others, large positional discrepancies arise (in the range of 55–65%). When all three maps are overlain, the locational mismatch of landslide deposit polygons increases to over 80%. To assess the impact of these errors on predictive models of landslide hazard, for the study area discriminant models were built up from the same set of geological-geomorphological factors as predictors, and the occurrence of landslide deposits within each terrain-unit, derived from each inventory map, as dependent variable. The comparison of these models demonstrates that statistical modelling greatly minimises the impact of input data errors which remain, however, a major limitation on the reliability of landslide hazard maps.