Geohazards in Greece - Extreme Landslides and Extensive Land Subsidence PhenomenaC. Loupasakis and D. Rozos During the last decade, the landslide activity is increasingly high in Greece, as a result of increased urbanization and development in landslide-prone areas, continued deforestration and extreme meteorological events. The increasing number of the landslides led to the occurrence of serious socio-economic consequences resulted in a significant increase of total economic losses, fortunately without casualties. The current presentation aims to display the results of the numerous studies conducted regarding the landslide hazard zonation in Greece and the main characteristics of the failures resulting by the use of simple statistics. Furthermore some extensive landslide events causing serious socio-economic consequences can be presented. Concerning the land subsidence phenomena due to the overexploitation of the aquifers, the affected areas present dramatic increase during the last 30 years. The poly-parametric nature of the subsidence mechanism combining the geological, hydrogeological and morphological setting of the areas with the human activities and the land use data makes their study complicated, allowing the intervention of multiple scientific specialties. Thessaly plain in central Greece, Kalochori village, on the west of Thessaloniki, Anargiri region, on the southwest of Florina and Messara valley in Crete Island , are some examples of areas damaged by those phenomena. The current presentation aims to present the spatial distribution of the areas affected by those phenomena and also to display the results of the studies conducted regarding their mechanism. Furthermore the socio-economic consequences of selected major phenomena can be presented. |
