An empirical method to forecast the effect of storm intensity on shallow landslide abundance
We hypothesize that the number of shallow landslides a storm triggers in a landscape increases with rainfall intensity, duration and the number of unstable model cells for a given shallow landslide susceptibility model of that landscape. For selected areas in California, USA, we use digital maps of historic shallow landslides with adjacent rainfall records to construct a relation between rainfall intensity and the fraction of unstable model cells that actually failed in historic storms. We find that this fraction increases as a power law with the 6-hour rainfall intensity for sites in southern California. We use this relation to forecast shallow landslide abundance for a dynamic numerical simulation storm for California, representing the most extreme historic storms known to have impacted the state.
Citation Information
Publication Year | 2011 |
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Title | An empirical method to forecast the effect of storm intensity on shallow landslide abundance |
DOI | 10.4408/IJEGE.2011-03.B-110 |
Authors | Jonathan D. Stock, Dino Bellugi |
Publication Type | Article |
Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
Series Title | Italian Journal of Engineering Geology and Environment |
Index ID | 70041282 |
Record Source | USGS Publications Warehouse |
USGS Organization | Geology and Geophysics Science Center |