Luigi Lombardo

Alumni

(Postdoctoral Fellow until 2018) Assistant Professor at Faculty of​ Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ICT), Netherlands

Alumni

Research Interests

My scientific interest lies in spatial predictive modeling, this being primarily applied in the framework of natural hazard. My research focused on landslide susceptibility and its transferability between different geographic contexts by testing several statistical approaches (e.g. Binary Logistic Regression, Stochastic Gradient Treeboost, Maximum Entropy). From an initial interest in rainfall-induced landslides, I have recently shifted my attention to earthquake-induced landslides. At the same time, I am also trying to investigate how effective spatial prediction can be when modeling other physical processes (aquifer vulnerability and dissolution feature occurrences) or properties (soil organic carbon). 

Selected Publications

  • Bout B, Lombardo L, van Westen C, Jetten VG (2018) Integration of two-phase solid fluid equations in a catchment model for flashfloods, debris flows and shallow slope failures. Environmental Modelling & Software 105, pp 1–16.
  • Lombardo L, Opitz T, Huser R (2018) Point process-based modeling of multiple debris flow landslides using INLA: an application to the 2009 Messina disaster. Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment, volume to be assigned, pp 1–20.
  • Lombardo L, Saia S, Schillaci C, Mai PM, Huser R (2018) Modeling soil organic carbon with Quantile Regression: Dissecting predictors' effects on carbon stocks. Geoderma 318, pp. 148-159.
  • Castro Camilo D, Lombardo L, Mai PM, Jie D, Huser R (2017) Handling high predictor dimensionality in slope-unit-based landslide susceptibility models through LASSO-penalized Generalized Linear Model. Environmental Modelling & Software 97, pp. 145-156.​
  • Schillaci C, Acutis M, Lombardo L , Lipani A, Fantappiè M, Märker M, Saia S (2017) Spatio-temporal topsoil organic carbon mapping of a semi-arid Mediterranean region: The role of land use, soil texture, topographic indices and the influence of remote sensing data to modelling. Science of The Total Environment 601, 821-832. j.scitotenv.2017.05.239 
  • Schillaci C, Lombardo L , Saia S, Fantappiè M, Märker M, Acutis M (2017) Modelling the topsoil carbon stock of agricultural lands with the Stochastic Gradient Treeboost in a semi-arid Mediterranean region. Geoderma 286, 35–45. doi:10.1016/j.geoderma.2016.10.019
  • Lombardo L , Fubelli G, Amato G, Bonasera M. (2016) Presence-only approach to assess landslide triggering-thickness susceptibility. A test for the Mili catchment (North-Eastern Sicily, Italy).  Natural Hazards, pp. 1-24. Article in Press. DOI: 10.1007/s11069-016-2443-5
  • Lombardo L , Bachofer F, Cama M, Maerker M, Rotigliano E (2016) Exploiting Maximum Entropy method and ASTER data for assessing debris flow and debris slide susceptibility for the Giampilieri catchment (north-eastern Sicily, Italy). Earth Surface Processes and Landforms. Article in press. DOI: 10.1002/esp.3998
  • Conoscenti C, Rotigliano E, Cama M, A Caraballo-Arias N, Lombardo L , Agnesi V (2016) Exploring the effect of absences selection on landslide susceptibility models: A case study of Sicily, Italy. Geomorphology, 261, pp. 222-235. DOI:10.1016/j.geomorph.2016.03.006.
  • Tziritis E, and Lombardo L  (2016) Estimation of intrinsic aquifer vulnerability with index-overlay and statistical methods. The case of eastern Kopaida, central Greece. Applied Water Science, in press. DOI:10.1007/s13201-016-0397-0.
  • Cama M, Lombardo L , Conoscenti C, Agnesi V, Rotigliano E (2015) Predicting storm-triggered debris flow events: Application to the 2009 Ionian Peloritan disaster (Sicily, Italy). Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 15 (8), pp. 1785-1806. DOI: 10.5194/nhess-15-1785-2015
  • Lombardo L , Cama M, Conoscenti C, Märker M, Rotigliano E (2015) Binary logistic regression versus stochastic gradient boosted decision trees in assessing landslide susceptibility for multiple-occurring landslide events: application to the 2009 storm event in Messina (Sicily, southern Italy). Natural Hazards, 79 (3), pp. 1621-1648. DOI: 10.1007/s11069-015-1915-3
  • Lombardo L , Cama M, Maerker M, Rotigliano E (2014) A test of transferability for landslides susceptibility models under extreme climatic events: Application to the Messina 2009 disaster. Natural Hazards, 74 (3), pp. 1951-1989. DOI: 10.1007/s11069-014-1285-2
  • Martorana R, Lombardo L , Messina N, Luzio D (2014) Integrated geophysical survey for 3D modelling of a coastal aquifer polluted by seawater. Near Surface Geophysics, 12 (1), pp. 45-59. DOI: 10.3997/1873-0604.2013006​

Education

  • 2015, Phd in Geology, Universita’ degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
  • 2011 MSc in Earth Sciences, Universita’ degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
  • 2008 BSc in Earth Sciences, Universita’ degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, Italy

Awards

  • Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award at EGU 2016
  • PI of the European Space Agency Project: A remote sensing based approach for storm triggered debris flow hazard modelling: application in Mediterranean and tropical Pacific areas.
  • 2012, German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD scholarship.