Landslide Exposure in the United States

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By Daniel Acosta-Reyes, Joseph Wartman, Jessica Kaminsky, AGU pubs. 

Excerpt: [Abstract - Landslide exposure in the United States has not been systematically quantified at the national scale.... To address this gap, we developed the Landslide Exposure Database (LED), the first building-level national assessment integrating landslide susceptibility, building inventories, and socioeconomic data for 128 million structures across the United States. Although high-susceptibility terrain covers 19% of United States land area, the 6.5 million people residing in these areas represent just 2% of the national population, indicating that exposure reflects human geography as much as physical geography. Geographically, exposure concentrates in the Appalachian Highlands and Pacific Mountain System....] ...Most landslides are triggered by intense precipitation or seismic activity..., though anthropogenic slope modifications can compound these drivers in urbanized areas.... Climate change is intensifying this threat...: projections show more frequent and intense extreme precipitation, the primary trigger of landslide fatalities globally.... Together, increasing precipitation extremes and ongoing development on steeper terrain are likely to increase landslide losses without proactive mitigation.... 

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