Rex Baum
Rex worked as a research geologist in the Landslide Hazards Program of the U.S. Geological Survey.
While at the USGS Rex conducted research on landslide processes, monitoring, forecasting and warning, and hazards in the Colorado Plateau, Colorado Front Range, southern Rocky Mountains, southwest Ohio, central California, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, Puerto Rico, Poland, and El Salvador, Central America.
Education and Certifications
Ph.D., Geology, University of Cincinnati
M.S., Geology, University of Cincinnati
B.U.S., University of New Mexico
Science and Products
Sitka, AK
On August 18, 2015, heavy rainfall triggered around 60 landslides in and around the city of Sitka, AK. The landslides moved downslope rapidly; several were damaging and one of these demolished a home on South Kramer Avenue killing three people.
Preliminary Landslide Susceptibility Maps and Data for Hawaii
Landslide Susceptibility Data and Maps provide tools for hazard assessment prior to an event that may cause landslides.
Seattle Area, Washington
Monitoring at this site is for researching rainfall thresholds for forecasting landslide potential. Shallow landslides are common on coastal bluffs overlooking Puget Sound.
Millicoma Meander, Elliott State Forest, Oregon
The USGS and its cooperators have installed instruments in a steep, recently clear-cut basin in the Elliott State Forest.
Portland, Oregon
Landslides in the West Hills of Portland pose a hazard to people and property.
Knife Ridge, Elliott State Forest, Oregon
The USGS and its cooperators have installed instruments in a steep hillside about 20 km southeast of Reedsport in the Elliott State Forest.
Landslides Can Cause More Landslides
Release Date: MAY 15, 2018 The deadliest individual landslides in the U.S. recently were in places where there had previously been a landslide. Why do landslides happen in the same place instead of on nearby slopes that appear to be just as likely, if not more likely, to slide?
Integrating Disparate Spatial Datasets from Local to National Scale for Open-Access Web-Based Visualization and Analysis: A Case Study Compiling U.S. Landslide Inventories
Spatial data on landslide occurrence across the U.S. varies greatly in quality, accessibility, and extent. This problem of data variability is common across USGS Mission Areas; it presents an obstacle to developing national-scale products and to identifying areas with relatively good/bad data coverage. We compiled available data of known landslides into a national-scale, searchable...
Reconstruction of an Avalanche: The West Salt Creek Rock Avalanche
Release Date: MAY 25, 2016 The West Salt Creek Rock Avalanche, Colorado, May 25, 2014
Filter Total Items: 14
Maps showing landslide structures at three locations on the active part of the Slumgullion landslide, Hinsdale County, Colorado in 2002, 2013, and 2023
The maps in this data release show active landslide structures in three areas along the north flank of the Slumgullion landslide. After the entire active part of the landslide was mapped in 1992 and 1993 (Fleming and others, 1999), we remapped these three smaller areas at roughly decadal intervals. Our goal was to learn what structures might persist and how they might change as...
Field observations of landslides and related materials following Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico
During September 2017, Hurricane Maria caused widespread landsliding throughout mountainous regions of Puerto Rico, with more than 71,000 landslides being subsequently identified from aerial imagery (Hughes et al., 2019). Most landslides apparently mobilized as debris flows and occurred within soil (unconsolidated material overlying saprolite and bedrock) and saprolite overlying less...
Engineering Soil Classification and Geotechnical Measurements in Lares, Naranjito, and Utuado, Puerto Rico
The data includes soil texture, soil-water, and estimated soil strength properties for soil map units and from geotechnical investigations of landslide areas affecting highways in the municipalities of Lares, Naranjito, and Utuado, Puerto Rico.
Model input and output data covering Lares Municipio, Utuado Municipio, and Naranjito Municipio, Puerto Rico, for landslide initiation susceptibility assessment after Hurricane Maria
Hurricane Maria induced about 70,000 landslides throughout Puerto Rico, USA (Hughes and others, 2019). Data in this project pertain to two areas situated in Puerto Rico’s rugged Cordillera Central range. Combined, these areas account for more than half of the hurricane-induced landslides. One of these areas encloses two neighboring municipalities, Lares Municipio, and Utuado Municipio...
Hydrologic monitoring data in steep, landslide-prone terrain, Sitka, Alaska, USA
This data release includes time-series data and qualitative descriptions from a monitoring station on a steep, landslide-prone slope above the City of Sitka, Alaska. On August 18, 2015, heavy rainfall triggered around 60 landslides in and around Sitka. These landslides moved downslope rapidly; several were damaging, and one demolished a home on South Kramer Avenue and killed three people...
Distribution of large boulders on the deposit of the West Salt Creek rock avalanche, western Colorado
On May 25th, 2014, a 54.5 Mm3 rock avalanche occurred in the West Salt Creek valley in western Colorado following heavy rainfall on top of snow (Coe and others, 2016a). The data in this project includes boulder density in 20-m x 20-m grid cells for the entire West Salt Creek rock avalanche deposit. The grid cells cover 2,154,800 m2, which accounts for nearly the entire surface of the...
Map and model input and output data for the north Charlotte Creek Basin, Douglas County, Oregon, for analysis of debris-flow initiation resulting from the storm of November 17 - 19, 1996
Heavy rainfall during mid-November 1996 induced debris flows throughout the southern Oregon Coast Range, including more than 150 in the immediate vicinity of north Charlotte Creek (Coe and others, 2011). Data in this project pertain to a 2.4-km2 area centered at N 43.65° and W 123.94° which an area where high concentrations of debris flows occurred. These data include a subset of a map...
Time-lapse photography of an active coastal-bluff landslide, Mukilteo, Washington, August 2015 - May 2016
A time-lapse camera was used to document periodic reactivation of a complex landslide on a steep coastal bluff in Mukilteo, Washington. This landslide is one of four monitoring sites initiated by the U.S Geological Survey to investigate hill-slope hydrology and landslide hazards affecting the railway corridor along the eastern shore of Puget Sound between the cities of Seattle and...
Map of slope-failure locations in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria
In Puerto Rico, tens of thousands of landslides, slumps, debris flows, rock falls, and other slope failures were triggered by Hurricane Maria, which made landfall on 20 September 2017. "Landslide" is used here and below to represent all types of slope failures. This dataset is a point shapefile of landslide headscarps identified across Puerto Rico using georeferenced aerial and satellite...
Results of Hydrologic Monitoring on Landslide-prone Coastal Bluffs near Mukilteo, Washington
A hydrologic monitoring network was installed to investigate landslide hazards affecting the railway corridor along the eastern shore of Puget Sound between Seattle and Everett, near Mukilteo, Washington. During the summer of 2015, the U.S. Geological Survey installed instrumentation at four sites to measure rainfall and air temperature every 15 minutes. Two of the four sites are...
Results of Hydrologic Monitoring of a Landslide-Prone Hillslope in Portland's West Hills, Oregon, 2006-2017
The West Hills of Portland, in the southern Tualatin Mountains, trend northwest along the west side of Portland, Oregon. These silt-mantled mountains receive significant wet-season precipitation and are prone to sliding during wet conditions, occasionally resulting in significant property damage or casualties. In an effort to develop a baseline for interpretive analysis of the...
Map and model input and output data covering N 40.0 40.375 and W 105.25 105.625 in the northern Colorado Front Range for analysis of debris flow initiation resulting from the storm of September 9 13, 2013
Rainfall on 913 September 2013 triggered at least 1,138 debris flows in a 3430 km2 area of the Colorado Front Range. Most flows were triggered in response to two intense rainfall periods, one 12.5-hour-long period on 1112 September, and one 8-hour-long period on 12 September. Data in this project pertain to an area bounded by N 40.0 40.375 and W 105.25 105.625 which includes many of the...
Map showing locations of damaging landslides in Santa Cruz County, California, resulting from 1997-98 El Nino rainstorms
Heavy rainfall associated with a strong El Nino caused over $150 million in landslide damage in the 10-county San Francisco Bay region during the winter and spring of 1998. A team of USGS scientists collected information on landslide locations and damage costs. About $14.5 million in damages were assessed in Santa Cruz County.
Map and description of the active part of the Slumgullion Landslide, Hinsdale County, Colorado
This text accompanies a map of many of the features on the active part of the Slumgullion landslide, Hinsdale County, Colo. Long-term movement creates and destroys a variety of structural features on the surface of the landslide including faults, fractures, and folds, as well as basins and ridges. The Slumgullion landslide consists of a large volume of inactive landslide deposits and a...
Filter Total Items: 70
Assessing locations susceptible to shallow landslide initiation during prolonged intense rainfall in the Lares, Utuado, and Naranjito municipalities of Puerto Rico
Hurricane Maria induced about 70 000 landslides throughout Puerto Rico, USA, including thousands each in three municipalities situated in Puerto Rico's rugged Cordillera Central range. By combining a nonlinear soil-depth model, presumed wettest-case pore pressures, and quasi-three-dimensional (3D) slope-stability analysis, we developed a landslide susceptibility map that has very good...
Authors
Rex L. Baum, Dianne L. Brien, Mark E. Reid, William Schulz, Matthew J. Tello
Distribution of large boulders on the deposit of the West Salt Creek rock avalanche, western Colorado
On May 25, 2014, a 54.5-million cubic meter rock avalanche in the West Salt Creek valley, Mesa County, Colorado, traveled 4.6 kilometers, leaving a deposit that covers about 2.2 square kilometers. To check the particle-size distribution of the deposit for information about the high mobility of the avalanche, we estimated boulder distribution density for the entire deposit by counting 1...
Authors
Adrian C. Lewis, Rex L. Baum, Jeffrey A. Coe
HydroMet: A new code for automated objective optimization of hydrometeorological thresholds for landslide initiation
Landslide detection and warning systems are important tools for mitigation of potential hazards in landslide prone areas. Traditionally, warning systems for shallow landslides have been informed by rainfall intensity-duration thresholds. More recent advances have introduced the concept of hydrometeorological thresholds that are informed not only by rainfall, but also by subsurface...
Authors
Jacob L. Conrad, Michael D. Morphew, Rex L. Baum, Benjamin B. Mirus
When hazard avoidance is not an option: Lessons learned from monitoring the postdisaster Oso landslide, USA
On 22 March 2014, a massive, catastrophic landslide occurred near Oso, Washington, USA, sweeping more than 1 km across the adjacent valley flats and killing 43 people. For the following 5 weeks, hundreds of workers engaged in an exhaustive search, rescue, and recovery effort directly in the landslide runout path. These workers could not avoid the risks posed by additional large-scale...
Authors
Mark E. Reid, Jonathan W. Godt, Richard G LaHusen, Stephen L Slaughter, Thomas C. Badger, Brian D. Collins, William Schulz, Rex L. Baum, Jeffrey A. Coe, Edwin L Harp, Kevin M. Schmidt, Richard M. Iverson, Joel B. Smith, Ralph A. Haugerud, David L. George
Incorporating the effects of complex soil layering and thickness local variability into distributed landslide susceptibility assessments
Incorporating the influence of soil layering and local variability into the parameterizations of physics-based numerical models for distributed landslide susceptibility assessments remains a challenge. Typical applications employ substantial simplifications including homogeneous soil units and soil-hydraulic properties assigned based only on average textural classifications; the...
Authors
F. Fusco, Benjamin B. Mirus, Rex L. Baum, D. Calcaterra, P. De Vita
Rapid sensitivity analysis for reducing uncertainty in landslide hazard assessments
One of the challenges in assessing temporal and spatial aspects of landslide hazard using process-based models is estimating model input parameters, especially in areas where limited measurements of soil and rock properties are available. In an effort to simplify and streamline parameter estimation, development of a simple, rapid approach to sensitivity analysis relies on field...
Authors
Rex L. Baum
Progress and lessons learned from responses to landslide disasters
Landslides have the incredible power to transform landscapes and also, tragically, to cause disastrous societal impacts. Whereas the mechanics and effects of many landslide disasters have been analyzed in detail, the means by which landslide experts respond to these events has garnered much less attention. Herein, we evaluate nine landslide response case histories conducted by the U.S...
Authors
Brian D. Collins, Mark E. Reid, Jeffrey A. Coe, Jason W. Kean, Rex L. Baum, Randall W. Jibson, Jonathan W. Godt, Stephen Slaughter, Greg M. Stock
Landslides across the United States: Occurrence, susceptibility, and data limitations
Detailed information about landslide occurrence is the foundation for advancing process understanding, susceptibility mapping, and risk reduction. Despite the recent revolution in digital elevation data and remote sensing technologies, landslide mapping remains resource intensive. Consequently, a modern, comprehensive map of landslide occurrence across the United States (USA) has not...
Authors
Benjamin B. Mirus, Eric S. Jones, Rex L. Baum, Jonathan W. Godt, Stephen L. Slaughter, Matthew Crawford, Jeremy T. Lancaster, Thomas Stanley, Dalia Kirschbaum, William J. Burns, Robert G. Schmitt, Kassandra O Lindsey, Kevin McCoy
Physically based estimation of rainfall thresholds triggering shallow landslides in volcanic slopes of southern Italy
On the 4th and 5th of March 2005, about 100 rainfall-induced landslides occurred along volcanic slopes of Camaldoli Hill in Naples, Italy. These started as soil slips in the upper substratum of incoherent and welded volcaniclastic deposits, then evolved downslope according to debris avalanche and debris flow mechanisms. This specific case of slope instability on complex volcaniclastic...
Authors
F. Fusco, P. De Vita, Benjamin B. Mirus, Rex L. Baum, V. Allocca, R. Tufano, D. Calcaterra
Constraining parameter uncertainty in modeling debris-flow initiation during the September 2013 Colorado Front Range storm
The occurrence of debris flows during the September 2013 northern Colorado floods took the emergency management community by surprise. The September 2013 debris flows in the Colorado Front Range initiated from shallow landslides in colluvium. Most occurred on south- and east-facing slopes on the walls of steep canyons in crystalline rocks and on sedimentary hogbacks. Previous studies...
Authors
Rex L. Baum, C.R. Scheevel, Eric S. Jones
Bayesian analysis of the impact of rainfall data product on simulated slope failure for North Carolina locations
In the past decades, many different approaches have been developed in the literature to quantify the load-carrying capacity and geotechnical stability (or the Factor of Safety, F_s) of variably saturated hillslopes. Much of this work has focused on a deterministic characterization of hillslope stability. Yet, simulated F_s values are subject to considerable uncertainty due to our...
Authors
Soni Yatheendradas, Dalia Kirschbaum, Grey Nearing, Jasper A. Vrugt, Rex L. Baum, Rick Wooten, Ning Lu, Jonathan W. Godt
Field and laboratory hydraulic characterization of landslide-prone soils in the Oregon Coast Range and implications for hydrologic simulation
Unsaturated zone flow processes are an important focus of landslide hazard estimation. Differences in soil hydraulic behavior between wetting and drying conditions (i.e., hydraulic hysteresis) may be important in landslide triggering. Hydraulic hysteresis can complicate soil hydraulic parameter estimates and impact prediction capability. This investigation focused on hydraulic property...
Authors
Brian A. Ebel, Jonathan W. Godt, Ning Lu, Jeffrey A. Coe, Joel B. Smith, Rex L. Baum
REGOLITH--A Fortran 95 program for estimating soil mantle thickness in a digital landscape for landslide and debris-flow hazard assessment
The computer program REGOLITH is a Fortran program designed for estimating soil thickness over a digital landscape. The program implements various published empirical and process-based models for soil thickness. This command-line program is used in conjunction with Python scripts to prepare input files and automate certain steps.
THRESH
Software for tracking rainfall thresholds for landslide and debris-flow occurrence, user manual.
Thresh - Software for Tracking Rainfall Thresholds for Landslide and Debris Flow Occurrence, Code Repository
The precipitation tracking program, thresh, is a Fortran program designed for computing various measures of precipitation for comparison against established or trial thresholds for landslide occurrence. The program computes cumulative precipitation and precipitation intensity and duration and compares them to thresholds to identify periods of threshold exceedance for use in landslide...
TRIGRS version 2.1
The Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Model (TRIGRS) is a Fortran program designed for modeling the timing and distribution of shallow, rainfall-induced landslides. The program computes transient pore-pressure changes, and attendant changes in the factor of safety, due to rainfall infiltration. This release, 2.1.0a, includes bug fixes, new output...
Serial and parallel versions of the Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Model (TRIGRS)
The Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Model (TRIGRS) is a Fortran program designed for modeling the timing and distribution of shallow, rainfall-induced landslides. The program computes transient pore-pressure changes, and attendant changes in the factor of safety, due to rainfall infiltration. The program models rainfall infiltration, resulting from...
TRIGRS
A Fortran Program for Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Analysis, Version 2.0.
Science and Products
Sitka, AK
On August 18, 2015, heavy rainfall triggered around 60 landslides in and around the city of Sitka, AK. The landslides moved downslope rapidly; several were damaging and one of these demolished a home on South Kramer Avenue killing three people.
Preliminary Landslide Susceptibility Maps and Data for Hawaii
Landslide Susceptibility Data and Maps provide tools for hazard assessment prior to an event that may cause landslides.
Seattle Area, Washington
Monitoring at this site is for researching rainfall thresholds for forecasting landslide potential. Shallow landslides are common on coastal bluffs overlooking Puget Sound.
Millicoma Meander, Elliott State Forest, Oregon
The USGS and its cooperators have installed instruments in a steep, recently clear-cut basin in the Elliott State Forest.
Portland, Oregon
Landslides in the West Hills of Portland pose a hazard to people and property.
Knife Ridge, Elliott State Forest, Oregon
The USGS and its cooperators have installed instruments in a steep hillside about 20 km southeast of Reedsport in the Elliott State Forest.
Landslides Can Cause More Landslides
Release Date: MAY 15, 2018 The deadliest individual landslides in the U.S. recently were in places where there had previously been a landslide. Why do landslides happen in the same place instead of on nearby slopes that appear to be just as likely, if not more likely, to slide?
Integrating Disparate Spatial Datasets from Local to National Scale for Open-Access Web-Based Visualization and Analysis: A Case Study Compiling U.S. Landslide Inventories
Spatial data on landslide occurrence across the U.S. varies greatly in quality, accessibility, and extent. This problem of data variability is common across USGS Mission Areas; it presents an obstacle to developing national-scale products and to identifying areas with relatively good/bad data coverage. We compiled available data of known landslides into a national-scale, searchable...
Reconstruction of an Avalanche: The West Salt Creek Rock Avalanche
Release Date: MAY 25, 2016 The West Salt Creek Rock Avalanche, Colorado, May 25, 2014
Filter Total Items: 14
Maps showing landslide structures at three locations on the active part of the Slumgullion landslide, Hinsdale County, Colorado in 2002, 2013, and 2023
The maps in this data release show active landslide structures in three areas along the north flank of the Slumgullion landslide. After the entire active part of the landslide was mapped in 1992 and 1993 (Fleming and others, 1999), we remapped these three smaller areas at roughly decadal intervals. Our goal was to learn what structures might persist and how they might change as...
Field observations of landslides and related materials following Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico
During September 2017, Hurricane Maria caused widespread landsliding throughout mountainous regions of Puerto Rico, with more than 71,000 landslides being subsequently identified from aerial imagery (Hughes et al., 2019). Most landslides apparently mobilized as debris flows and occurred within soil (unconsolidated material overlying saprolite and bedrock) and saprolite overlying less...
Engineering Soil Classification and Geotechnical Measurements in Lares, Naranjito, and Utuado, Puerto Rico
The data includes soil texture, soil-water, and estimated soil strength properties for soil map units and from geotechnical investigations of landslide areas affecting highways in the municipalities of Lares, Naranjito, and Utuado, Puerto Rico.
Model input and output data covering Lares Municipio, Utuado Municipio, and Naranjito Municipio, Puerto Rico, for landslide initiation susceptibility assessment after Hurricane Maria
Hurricane Maria induced about 70,000 landslides throughout Puerto Rico, USA (Hughes and others, 2019). Data in this project pertain to two areas situated in Puerto Rico’s rugged Cordillera Central range. Combined, these areas account for more than half of the hurricane-induced landslides. One of these areas encloses two neighboring municipalities, Lares Municipio, and Utuado Municipio...
Hydrologic monitoring data in steep, landslide-prone terrain, Sitka, Alaska, USA
This data release includes time-series data and qualitative descriptions from a monitoring station on a steep, landslide-prone slope above the City of Sitka, Alaska. On August 18, 2015, heavy rainfall triggered around 60 landslides in and around Sitka. These landslides moved downslope rapidly; several were damaging, and one demolished a home on South Kramer Avenue and killed three people...
Distribution of large boulders on the deposit of the West Salt Creek rock avalanche, western Colorado
On May 25th, 2014, a 54.5 Mm3 rock avalanche occurred in the West Salt Creek valley in western Colorado following heavy rainfall on top of snow (Coe and others, 2016a). The data in this project includes boulder density in 20-m x 20-m grid cells for the entire West Salt Creek rock avalanche deposit. The grid cells cover 2,154,800 m2, which accounts for nearly the entire surface of the...
Map and model input and output data for the north Charlotte Creek Basin, Douglas County, Oregon, for analysis of debris-flow initiation resulting from the storm of November 17 - 19, 1996
Heavy rainfall during mid-November 1996 induced debris flows throughout the southern Oregon Coast Range, including more than 150 in the immediate vicinity of north Charlotte Creek (Coe and others, 2011). Data in this project pertain to a 2.4-km2 area centered at N 43.65° and W 123.94° which an area where high concentrations of debris flows occurred. These data include a subset of a map...
Time-lapse photography of an active coastal-bluff landslide, Mukilteo, Washington, August 2015 - May 2016
A time-lapse camera was used to document periodic reactivation of a complex landslide on a steep coastal bluff in Mukilteo, Washington. This landslide is one of four monitoring sites initiated by the U.S Geological Survey to investigate hill-slope hydrology and landslide hazards affecting the railway corridor along the eastern shore of Puget Sound between the cities of Seattle and...
Map of slope-failure locations in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria
In Puerto Rico, tens of thousands of landslides, slumps, debris flows, rock falls, and other slope failures were triggered by Hurricane Maria, which made landfall on 20 September 2017. "Landslide" is used here and below to represent all types of slope failures. This dataset is a point shapefile of landslide headscarps identified across Puerto Rico using georeferenced aerial and satellite...
Results of Hydrologic Monitoring on Landslide-prone Coastal Bluffs near Mukilteo, Washington
A hydrologic monitoring network was installed to investigate landslide hazards affecting the railway corridor along the eastern shore of Puget Sound between Seattle and Everett, near Mukilteo, Washington. During the summer of 2015, the U.S. Geological Survey installed instrumentation at four sites to measure rainfall and air temperature every 15 minutes. Two of the four sites are...
Results of Hydrologic Monitoring of a Landslide-Prone Hillslope in Portland's West Hills, Oregon, 2006-2017
The West Hills of Portland, in the southern Tualatin Mountains, trend northwest along the west side of Portland, Oregon. These silt-mantled mountains receive significant wet-season precipitation and are prone to sliding during wet conditions, occasionally resulting in significant property damage or casualties. In an effort to develop a baseline for interpretive analysis of the...
Map and model input and output data covering N 40.0 40.375 and W 105.25 105.625 in the northern Colorado Front Range for analysis of debris flow initiation resulting from the storm of September 9 13, 2013
Rainfall on 913 September 2013 triggered at least 1,138 debris flows in a 3430 km2 area of the Colorado Front Range. Most flows were triggered in response to two intense rainfall periods, one 12.5-hour-long period on 1112 September, and one 8-hour-long period on 12 September. Data in this project pertain to an area bounded by N 40.0 40.375 and W 105.25 105.625 which includes many of the...
Map showing locations of damaging landslides in Santa Cruz County, California, resulting from 1997-98 El Nino rainstorms
Heavy rainfall associated with a strong El Nino caused over $150 million in landslide damage in the 10-county San Francisco Bay region during the winter and spring of 1998. A team of USGS scientists collected information on landslide locations and damage costs. About $14.5 million in damages were assessed in Santa Cruz County.
Map and description of the active part of the Slumgullion Landslide, Hinsdale County, Colorado
This text accompanies a map of many of the features on the active part of the Slumgullion landslide, Hinsdale County, Colo. Long-term movement creates and destroys a variety of structural features on the surface of the landslide including faults, fractures, and folds, as well as basins and ridges. The Slumgullion landslide consists of a large volume of inactive landslide deposits and a...
Filter Total Items: 70
Assessing locations susceptible to shallow landslide initiation during prolonged intense rainfall in the Lares, Utuado, and Naranjito municipalities of Puerto Rico
Hurricane Maria induced about 70 000 landslides throughout Puerto Rico, USA, including thousands each in three municipalities situated in Puerto Rico's rugged Cordillera Central range. By combining a nonlinear soil-depth model, presumed wettest-case pore pressures, and quasi-three-dimensional (3D) slope-stability analysis, we developed a landslide susceptibility map that has very good...
Authors
Rex L. Baum, Dianne L. Brien, Mark E. Reid, William Schulz, Matthew J. Tello
Distribution of large boulders on the deposit of the West Salt Creek rock avalanche, western Colorado
On May 25, 2014, a 54.5-million cubic meter rock avalanche in the West Salt Creek valley, Mesa County, Colorado, traveled 4.6 kilometers, leaving a deposit that covers about 2.2 square kilometers. To check the particle-size distribution of the deposit for information about the high mobility of the avalanche, we estimated boulder distribution density for the entire deposit by counting 1...
Authors
Adrian C. Lewis, Rex L. Baum, Jeffrey A. Coe
HydroMet: A new code for automated objective optimization of hydrometeorological thresholds for landslide initiation
Landslide detection and warning systems are important tools for mitigation of potential hazards in landslide prone areas. Traditionally, warning systems for shallow landslides have been informed by rainfall intensity-duration thresholds. More recent advances have introduced the concept of hydrometeorological thresholds that are informed not only by rainfall, but also by subsurface...
Authors
Jacob L. Conrad, Michael D. Morphew, Rex L. Baum, Benjamin B. Mirus
When hazard avoidance is not an option: Lessons learned from monitoring the postdisaster Oso landslide, USA
On 22 March 2014, a massive, catastrophic landslide occurred near Oso, Washington, USA, sweeping more than 1 km across the adjacent valley flats and killing 43 people. For the following 5 weeks, hundreds of workers engaged in an exhaustive search, rescue, and recovery effort directly in the landslide runout path. These workers could not avoid the risks posed by additional large-scale...
Authors
Mark E. Reid, Jonathan W. Godt, Richard G LaHusen, Stephen L Slaughter, Thomas C. Badger, Brian D. Collins, William Schulz, Rex L. Baum, Jeffrey A. Coe, Edwin L Harp, Kevin M. Schmidt, Richard M. Iverson, Joel B. Smith, Ralph A. Haugerud, David L. George
Incorporating the effects of complex soil layering and thickness local variability into distributed landslide susceptibility assessments
Incorporating the influence of soil layering and local variability into the parameterizations of physics-based numerical models for distributed landslide susceptibility assessments remains a challenge. Typical applications employ substantial simplifications including homogeneous soil units and soil-hydraulic properties assigned based only on average textural classifications; the...
Authors
F. Fusco, Benjamin B. Mirus, Rex L. Baum, D. Calcaterra, P. De Vita
Rapid sensitivity analysis for reducing uncertainty in landslide hazard assessments
One of the challenges in assessing temporal and spatial aspects of landslide hazard using process-based models is estimating model input parameters, especially in areas where limited measurements of soil and rock properties are available. In an effort to simplify and streamline parameter estimation, development of a simple, rapid approach to sensitivity analysis relies on field...
Authors
Rex L. Baum
Progress and lessons learned from responses to landslide disasters
Landslides have the incredible power to transform landscapes and also, tragically, to cause disastrous societal impacts. Whereas the mechanics and effects of many landslide disasters have been analyzed in detail, the means by which landslide experts respond to these events has garnered much less attention. Herein, we evaluate nine landslide response case histories conducted by the U.S...
Authors
Brian D. Collins, Mark E. Reid, Jeffrey A. Coe, Jason W. Kean, Rex L. Baum, Randall W. Jibson, Jonathan W. Godt, Stephen Slaughter, Greg M. Stock
Landslides across the United States: Occurrence, susceptibility, and data limitations
Detailed information about landslide occurrence is the foundation for advancing process understanding, susceptibility mapping, and risk reduction. Despite the recent revolution in digital elevation data and remote sensing technologies, landslide mapping remains resource intensive. Consequently, a modern, comprehensive map of landslide occurrence across the United States (USA) has not...
Authors
Benjamin B. Mirus, Eric S. Jones, Rex L. Baum, Jonathan W. Godt, Stephen L. Slaughter, Matthew Crawford, Jeremy T. Lancaster, Thomas Stanley, Dalia Kirschbaum, William J. Burns, Robert G. Schmitt, Kassandra O Lindsey, Kevin McCoy
Physically based estimation of rainfall thresholds triggering shallow landslides in volcanic slopes of southern Italy
On the 4th and 5th of March 2005, about 100 rainfall-induced landslides occurred along volcanic slopes of Camaldoli Hill in Naples, Italy. These started as soil slips in the upper substratum of incoherent and welded volcaniclastic deposits, then evolved downslope according to debris avalanche and debris flow mechanisms. This specific case of slope instability on complex volcaniclastic...
Authors
F. Fusco, P. De Vita, Benjamin B. Mirus, Rex L. Baum, V. Allocca, R. Tufano, D. Calcaterra
Constraining parameter uncertainty in modeling debris-flow initiation during the September 2013 Colorado Front Range storm
The occurrence of debris flows during the September 2013 northern Colorado floods took the emergency management community by surprise. The September 2013 debris flows in the Colorado Front Range initiated from shallow landslides in colluvium. Most occurred on south- and east-facing slopes on the walls of steep canyons in crystalline rocks and on sedimentary hogbacks. Previous studies...
Authors
Rex L. Baum, C.R. Scheevel, Eric S. Jones
Bayesian analysis of the impact of rainfall data product on simulated slope failure for North Carolina locations
In the past decades, many different approaches have been developed in the literature to quantify the load-carrying capacity and geotechnical stability (or the Factor of Safety, F_s) of variably saturated hillslopes. Much of this work has focused on a deterministic characterization of hillslope stability. Yet, simulated F_s values are subject to considerable uncertainty due to our...
Authors
Soni Yatheendradas, Dalia Kirschbaum, Grey Nearing, Jasper A. Vrugt, Rex L. Baum, Rick Wooten, Ning Lu, Jonathan W. Godt
Field and laboratory hydraulic characterization of landslide-prone soils in the Oregon Coast Range and implications for hydrologic simulation
Unsaturated zone flow processes are an important focus of landslide hazard estimation. Differences in soil hydraulic behavior between wetting and drying conditions (i.e., hydraulic hysteresis) may be important in landslide triggering. Hydraulic hysteresis can complicate soil hydraulic parameter estimates and impact prediction capability. This investigation focused on hydraulic property...
Authors
Brian A. Ebel, Jonathan W. Godt, Ning Lu, Jeffrey A. Coe, Joel B. Smith, Rex L. Baum
REGOLITH--A Fortran 95 program for estimating soil mantle thickness in a digital landscape for landslide and debris-flow hazard assessment
The computer program REGOLITH is a Fortran program designed for estimating soil thickness over a digital landscape. The program implements various published empirical and process-based models for soil thickness. This command-line program is used in conjunction with Python scripts to prepare input files and automate certain steps.
THRESH
Software for tracking rainfall thresholds for landslide and debris-flow occurrence, user manual.
Thresh - Software for Tracking Rainfall Thresholds for Landslide and Debris Flow Occurrence, Code Repository
The precipitation tracking program, thresh, is a Fortran program designed for computing various measures of precipitation for comparison against established or trial thresholds for landslide occurrence. The program computes cumulative precipitation and precipitation intensity and duration and compares them to thresholds to identify periods of threshold exceedance for use in landslide...
TRIGRS version 2.1
The Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Model (TRIGRS) is a Fortran program designed for modeling the timing and distribution of shallow, rainfall-induced landslides. The program computes transient pore-pressure changes, and attendant changes in the factor of safety, due to rainfall infiltration. This release, 2.1.0a, includes bug fixes, new output...
Serial and parallel versions of the Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Model (TRIGRS)
The Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Model (TRIGRS) is a Fortran program designed for modeling the timing and distribution of shallow, rainfall-induced landslides. The program computes transient pore-pressure changes, and attendant changes in the factor of safety, due to rainfall infiltration. The program models rainfall infiltration, resulting from...
TRIGRS
A Fortran Program for Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Analysis, Version 2.0.