Landslide dams in Europe – distribution, data gaps, and further research

The states and territories of Europe extend from the Ural mountains in the East to the Black and Mediterranean Seas in the South and are enclosed by the Atlantic Ocean West and North. With a variety of landscapes prone to slope failures, only few inventories exist of the resulting landslide deposits and river-damming (past and present) locations. In this chapter of the planned Springer Book „Landslide Dams around the World“ we are compiling data from published inventories, search for and add unpublished data, and aspire to present as complete a story as possible of landslide dams in Europe. Whilst extensive inventories exists for Austria, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland, few other countries feature published landslide dam datasets (e.g., Romania). Case studies exist for larger dams and some datasets are stored (but not always available) with regional geological surveys. We hence call for collaboration across Europe to complete the database and pursue the following objectives: (i) create a comprehensive landslide-dam database for the European territory, (ii) statistically analyse the data for clusters, geomorphic and temporal correlations, (iii) identify influencing factors (e.g., regional, climatic, hydrologic, anthropogenic) on landslide-dam occurrence and stability, and (iv) make the data available for researchers and stakeholders alike.