Landslide control: a summary of suggestions for engineering code writers

Landslides affect large portions of the territory and their occurrence can be a non negligible factor altering the environment and limiting the sustainable development. However, the circumstances governing local geotechnical situations are extremely variable and great difficulty persists in predicting the performance of mechanically complex large bodies of natural materials when the predictions are based on a limited amount of uncertain data. Besides the great number of specific fundamental contributions due to the geotechnical community, it seems that no attempt has been so far successfully accomplished to set up rules for a sound engineering code of practice on the subject. The target could be reached with a step-by-step approach starting from a few general objective concepts. The Authors propose a list of topics which may help in identifying the main objective factors which should be considered in a set of guidelines for engineers dealing with slope stability problems.