Famous because of its deepness and beauty of the landscape, Colca Valley is one of the main places of tourist attraction in Peru. Maca and Lari are two of the valley villages, facing each other on opposite banks of the Colca River. High slope energy is only one of the factors causing a widespread landslide activity, triggered primarily by seismic activity. A study carried out into a capacity building project (FORGEO) was focused on mapping landslide source areas in the territory of both the villages. Starting from an inventory of several previous phenomena occurred in the area, an evaluation of the local predisposing parameters to these events was used as input for susceptibility and hazard GIS based analysis. An assessment of exposure of structures and infrastructures was also performed, detecting residual risk condition in the territories of both villages. The role of rainfall and groundwater in local landslide processes is stressed in this paper as well as the effectiveness of an adequate water management in landslide risk reduction and sustainable land use planning. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.