A review of recent studies on landslide hazard in Latin America

Over the last few decades, the impact of landslides has increased in Latin America. However, there is a deficiency in the region of diagnostic studies on landslide hazards. This review analyzes the state of the art of studies on landslide hazard occurred in Latin America. A search for articles published from 2000 to 2019 was carried out in Scopus, WoS, SciELO, REDIB, and Redalyc. The search yielded 1,365 publications, which were purged obtaining 283 articles, analyzed through a database organized in four categories: general information, study area, research objectives, and methodology. We identified an increase in the number of publications from the year 2011. Seventy-five percent of the 20 countries in the region published papers on landslides that had occurred in these countries, mainly research focus on susceptibility and characterization, and a reduced number, on hazardousness, inventories, trigger factors and conditioning factors. The results suggest the opportunity to incorporate novel methods, tools, techniques, and inputs into research of landslides in Latin America. This review constitutes an analytical and critical contribution to the study of landslide hazards in the region and indicates the studies that are urgent to enforce its integral management in the region and in other intertropical zones.