New research shows how deforestation and population growth have greatly impacted landslide risk in the Kivu Rift.
This is what researchers from KU Leuven, the Royal Museum for Central Africa and ULB established from an analysis of six decades of forest cover and population trends in the region. The study was published in Nature Sustainability.
Landslides occur in mountainous regions all over the world, causing thousands of fatalities each year. The strong population growth in recent decades, the associated increase in food demand, and the development of economic activities have incited more and more people to settle in steeper and thus more landslide-prone areas, often at the expense of natural ecosystems. Deforestation destabilises the soil as tree roots decay, further increasing landslide hazard.
It is widely recognised that population pressure and associated land use change, such as deforestation, affect landslide disaster risk. However, strong evidence to support this was still lacking. Investigating these human-nature interactions is challenging, especially in the Global South, where historical landslide and forest records are scarce.
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