Territory-wide predictions of mortality in landslide disasters

摘要

This paper is based on the outcomes of previous landslide failures and related mortality in a given region, providing input values to estimate credible ranges of mortality in future catastrophic events. Specific probability functions to model the distribution of mortality in landslides are presented. The proposed distributions are developed theoretically enforcing the principle of maximum entropy and the theory of statistics of extremes, leading however to very simple formulae for practical applications. The proposed distributions are compared to historical landslide mortality in Petropolis (State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Recife (State of Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil), Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro, Canada, and Italy with encouraging results.