About

Problem

Landslides are a ubiquitous phenomenon in mountainous terrain around the world, and they occur throughout all US states and territories. In the US alone, annual landslide-related losses have been estimated to be in excess of $2B and around 25-50 lives. Worldwide losses are much higher, with an estimated death toll of more than 18,000 lives in the period of 1998-2017.

Both immediate and long term, or cascading, effects of landsliding are important to society and the environment. Apart from the obvious hazard to human well-being and the built environment, sediment transport and deposition, landscape changes resulting in hydrologic and ecological impact, carbon capture or mobilization, and the effect of landslides on chemical weathering are examples of “downstream” impacts of mass wasting that are understudied.

Our center directly address two fundamental questions from the National Academies decadal survey report The Earth in Time: “What are the causes and consequences of topographic change?” and “How can Earth science research reduce the risk and toll of geohazards?” by focusing and mobilizing research in this field and providing an opportunity for core services, field experiments, and community modeling tools.

Mission

The mission of the NSF-funded Collaborative Center for Landslide Geohazards is is to carry out and promote landslide hazard science and community engagement across key landslide-prone areas of the nation, with the following objectives:

Explore the fundamental causes of diverse landslide types and cascading hazards resulting from these phenomena;​

Form and Manage a network of integrated regional hubs across key regions of the nation engaged in transformative research, knowledge exchange, and community engagement;​

Build and Curate a platform for fieldwork and modeling tools specific to landslide science for the benefit of researchers at-large; ​

Engage and Partner with communities susceptible to landslides via a structured geohazard preparedness program;​

Develop the next generation of diverse science leaders.

These efforts will lead to better predictions and understanding of landsliding and related impacts like sediment transport and deposition, the carbon cycle and landscape evolution, and synergism with the biosphere. The scientific approach will combine existing observations and focused field efforts with advanced modeling of behavior.

Partners