Spatial patterns of rainfall and shallow landslide susceptibility DRAFT
Minder JR, Roe GH, Montgomery DR. 2009. Spatial patterns of rainfall and shallow landslide susceptibility DRAFT. Water Resources Research
From the Abstract: "We quantify the effect of spatial patterns in climatological rainfall on shallow landslide susceptibility by forcing a physically-based model of slope stability (SHALSTAB) with the rainfall pattern produced by a high-resolution atmospheric model (MM5) over the western Olympic Mountains of Washington state. Our results suggest that for two small basins in the Olympics 10 km scale variations in rainfall have a substantial effect on landslide susceptibility. Assuming uniform rainfall equal to the average rainfall over the basins results in a moderate underestimate of landslide susceptibility. If climatological data from a lowland station is used to characterize the rainfall over the basins a substantial underestimate of susceptibility occurs. The effect of spatial variability in rainfall on variations in stability is comparable with the effect of moderate-to-large variability in soil parameters .... At a practical level, these results imply that accounting for persistent patterns of rainfall may aid in descerning regions within the same watershed where similar land use practices will lead to differing landslide risk."
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Minder, Justin; Roe, Gerard; Montgomery, David
- Units
- OLYM
- Keywords
- Atmospheric Sciences, Landslide, Precipitation