Natural Hazards and Earth System Science www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net 1561-8633 1684-9981 5 5 2005 10.5194/nhess-5-733-2005 http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/5/733/2005/ http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/5/733/2005/nhess-5-733-2005.html http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/5/733/2005/nhess-5-733-2005.pdf 733 740 2005-09-30 Great landslide events in Italian artificial reservoirs A. Panizzo P. De Girolamo M. Di Risio A. Maistri A. Petaccia Dipartimento di Ingegneria delle Strutture delle Acque e del Terreno DISAT, L’Aquila University, 67040 Monteluco di Roio (AQ), Italy Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata", Via del Politecnico 1, 00133 Roma, Italy Registro Italiano Dighe, Ufficio Geologia Applicata, Via Curtatone 3, 00185 Rome, Italy Registro Italiano Dighe, Ufficio Idraulica, Via Curtatone 3, 00185 Rome, Italy The empirical formulations to forecast landslide generated water waves, recently defined in the framework of a research program funded by the Italian National Dam Office RID (Registro Italiano Dighe), are here used to study three real cases of subaerial landslides which fell down italian artificial reservoirs. It is well known that impulse water waves generated by landslides constitute a very dangerous menace for human communities living in the shoreline of the artificial basin or downstream the dam. In 1963, the menace became tragedy, when a 270 millions m3 landslide fell down the Vajont reservoir (Italy), generated an impulse wave which destroyed the city of Longarone, and killed 2000 people. The paper is aimed at presenting the very satisfactorily reproduction of the events at hand by using forecasting formulations.