Quantification of the Natural Factors’ Impact Effectiveness on Environmental Hazards – Slope Movements in the Flysch Areas of the Kysuce Region

The flysch areas belong to the territories with highest occurrence of landslides in Slovakia. Almost 67% of all landslides in Slovakia take place within the Carpathian flysch. It is a type of slope deformation that responds sensitively to the quality of individual factors that form the landscape and to the change in natural conditions. The occurrence of various geodynamic phenomena can be understood as a geological barrier that reduces or inhibits the use of natural environment and negatively affects the life of society and territorial development. In this paper, we evaluate the statistical significance of selected natural factors of the landscape in relation to the occurrence of unstable slopes in the Kysuce region. In addition, we also evaluated the expansion of unstable slopes in individual landscape factors. Significant linkages between the variables’ hydrogeological base_sandstones with thin clay layers (HB_s) and geological-substrate complex_loamy wastes to loamy-stony debris on sandy conglomerates (GSC_sc) (R = 0.95, p = 0.002) and secondary significant linkages between the variables soil type: Dystric Cambisols (S_CMd) and HB_s (R = 0.40, p = 0.002) (Klokočov and Zákopčie cadastres) were observed. Significant correlation of variables within the areas with unstable slopes was also observed between hydrogeological base_sandy flysch (HB_sf) and geological-substrate complex_loamy wastes on flysch stones (GSC_fs) (R = 0.81, p = 0.002) (Nová Bystrica and Kysucké Nové Mesto cadastres). The most unstable slopes occur in Nová Bystrica cadastre (34.62% of the area) and in the Klokočov cadastre (28.25% of the area). The inclination of slopes (especially slopes above 12°) plays an important role within the unstable slopes. Slopes with steep inclination cover up to 81.45% of the cadastral area of Nová Bystrica, of which almost 1/3 are unstable slopes.