Landslide Susceptibility Analysis for Manglaralto River Basin, Ecuador

A 2026 study by Emily Sánchez-Zambrano analyzes slope stability in the lower Manglaralto River basin on the Ecuadorian coast, focusing on conservation of a UNESCO Ecohydrology Demonstration Site. The research identifies five landslide susceptibility classes, with high and very high susceptibility covering 29.78% and 17.19% of the area, respectively. It employs a geophysical-geotechnical methodology including electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), vertical electrical sounding (VES), and refraction seismics.

Use Cases

• Train a geospatial model to classify landslide susceptibility zones using the five identified classes (very low to very high).
• Correlate subsurface lithology layers (silty sand, clay, gravel, sand) with geophysical parameters like seismic velocity and resistivity to assess erosion risk.
• Validate susceptibility zoning by analyzing cross-diagrams of low seismic velocity (<600 m/s) and low resistivity (<60 Ω m) data points.
• Design conservation strategies for the UNESCO Ecohydrology Demonstration Site based on the mapped high and very high susceptibility areas.

Strengths

• Provides a detailed susceptibility breakdown with specific area percentages for five risk classes (e.g., 29.78% high susceptibility).
• Integrates multiple geophysical survey methods (ERT, VES, refraction seismics) for a multi-parameter analysis.
• Focuses on a specific, ecologically significant area: the UNESCO Ecohydrology Demonstration Site in the Manglaralto River basin.

Limitations

• The dataset is small in scale, consisting of a single 984.4 KB document, limiting extensive computational analysis.
• Data is presented in a narrative report format (DOCX), not as a structured, machine-readable table or geospatial file.
• The analysis is confined to one specific river basin in coastal Ecuador, limiting geographic generalizability.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Emily Sánchez-Zambrano.

Collection Method

Geophysical-geotechnical surveys (ERT, VES, refraction seismics) and multi-criteria modelling.

Freshness

Last updated March 24, 2026.

Geography

Lower sub-basin of the Manglaralto River, Ecuadorian coast.