期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2022
卷号：119
期号：2
DOI：10.1073/pnas.2113416118
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Significance
Landslides are triggered more often by human-induced changes, such as deforestation, infrastructure building, and increasing precipitation extremes, because of climate change. The huge economic and societal loss calls for a more cost-effective way to reduce risks and ensure sustainable development. Land-cover and land-use changes not only increase landslide susceptibility but also drive habitat loss and species extinctions. The high spatial overlap between landslide susceptibility and biodiversity in mountains provides an opportunity to achieve co-benefits in conservation and development. The identification of vulnerable mountains with both high biodiversity and landslide susceptibility prioritizes the regions for expansion of protected areas, forest conservation, and restoration, providing a nature-based solution to mitigate landslide risks through the protection of natural habitat.
Natural disasters impose huge uncertainty and loss to human lives and economic activities. Landslides are one disaster that has become more prevalent because of anthropogenic disturbances, such as land-cover changes, land degradation, and expansion of infrastructure. These are further exacerbated by more extreme precipitation due to climate change, which is predicted to trigger more landslides and threaten sustainable development in vulnerable regions. Although biodiversity conservation and development are often regarded as having a trade-off relationship, here we present a global analysis of the area with co-benefits, where conservation through expanding protection and reducing deforestation can not only benefit biodiversity but also reduce landslide risks to human society. High overlap exists between landslide susceptibility and areas of endemism for mammals, birds, and amphibians, which are mostly concentrated in mountain regions. We identified 247 mountain ranges as areas with high vulnerability, having both exceptional biodiversity and landslide risks, accounting for 25.8% of the global mountainous areas. Another 31 biodiverse mountains are classified as future vulnerable mountains as they face increasing landslide risks because of predicted climate change and deforestation. None of these 278 mountains reach the Aichi Target 11 of 17% coverage by protected areas. Of the 278 mountains, 52 need immediate actions because of high vulnerability, severe threats from future deforestation and precipitation extremes, low protection, and high-population density and anthropogenic activities. These actions include protected area expansion, forest conservation, and restoration where it could be a cost-effective way to reduce the risks of landslides.
