Earthquake-induced landslides in Haiti: analysis of seismotectonic and possible climatic influences

Abstract. First analyses of landslide distribution and triggering factors are presented for the region affected by 14 August 2021 earthquake (Mw=7.2) in Nippes Department, Haiti. Landslide mapping was mainly carried out comparing pre- post-event remote imagery (?0.5–1 m resolution) available on Google Earth Pro® Sentinel-2 (10 satellite images. The first covered about 50 % (for before completion map January 2022), latter were selected to cover entire potentially zone. On basis completed inventory, comparisons made with catalogs compiled others both 2010 seismic events, including one open inventory (by United States Geological Survey) that also used further statistical analyses. Additionally, we studied pre-2021 slope stability conditions. These show total number landslides mapped (7091) is larger than recently published another research team same event but slightly smaller a third team. It clearly observed two other teams (e.g., 23 567, inventory). However, these apparently fewer triggered much wider areas slopes (>80 km2) those induced (?25 km2 – considering A simple analysis indicates lower can be explained missing detection smallest 2021, partly due lower-resolution most recent earthquake; this confirmed an completeness based size–frequency statistics. area compared earthquake, related different physical reasons: (a) magnitude (b) more central location fault segment ruptured respect coastal zones, (c) possible climatic preconditioning instability area. observations supported (1) new map; (2) rainfall maps periods (including October 2016 when Hurricane Matthew had crossed western part Haiti), covering zones; (3) shaking intensity prediction maps.