National Land Erosion Inventory (2002-2019). Potentiality of mass movements

This Inventory aims to locate, quantify and analyse the evolution of erosive phenomena, with the ultimate aim of delimiting as accurately as possible the priority areas of action in the fight against erosion, as well as defining and evaluating the actions to be carried out, within the plans and programmes whose elaboration is also attributed by Royal Decree 1415/2000, establishing the organizational structure of the Ministry of the Environment. The realisation of the Inventory is structured with a provincial base in order to be able to take advantage and use the most recent information that is being generated both in the National Forestry Inventory (IFN) and in the Forest Map of Spain 1:50000 (MFE50) work also carried out by this Directorate General and elaborated at provincial level. Mass movements are mechanisms of erosion, transport and deposition that are produced by gravitational instability of the terrain. Their interrelationship with other mechanisms of erosion is very intense, especially in mountain areas, where together with the torrential hydrodynamics they configure the main denudative process of the slopes. This aspect is patented in the typological and quantitative consideration of mass movements in most torrent classifications. Outside the torrential basins, it is also important to contribute to the erosive dynamics, often being precursors or consequences of excavations and laminar erosions and in waterways. In this module we tried to determine the areas potentially susceptible to suffering this type of phenomena, depending on the basic characteristics of the territory that define this risk, mainly lithology, slope and rainfall. It also took into account the active movements identified through bibliographic compilation, as well as seismic risk. Consequently, based on the overlap of coverages corresponding to the different factors involved, the mapping of potentiality was developed. In the areas with greater potential, the predominant typology of the possible movements was also determined, and the corresponding cartography was also generated. The inventory is carried out between the years 2002-2019.