Damage Assessment of Historic Masonry Churches Exposed to Slow-moving Landslides

This paper presents a first contribution to the damage assessment of historic masonry churches exposed to slow-moving landslides. No studies have ever been devoted to systematically investigating the effects of slow-moving landslides on this type of structures. In this work, a damage survey campaign was performed on 33 listed churches located in landslides-affected areas in the Liguria region (Italy). For each church, information regarding zoning, state of activity and estimate direction of landslide phenomena was collected and analysed. A suitable knowledge of the main geometric and structural features as well as of history and past interventions was achieved for each building by means of on-site surveys and archival research. A detailed field-survey of crack patterns and deformations was also performed. The critical assessment of the damage observed allowed to put forward some original remarks on the structural response of historic masonry churches to slow-moving landslides. Furthermore, some recurrent types of damage and damage mechanisms were identified for the first time.