COGGE Webinar Series - 6/6/19: Regional-Scale Landslide Risk Assessment: Methodology and Application
Channel: National Academies - Earth and Life Studies
Date: 05/08/2019

Abstract: Landslides cause economic losses of about $3 billion and claim the lives of 25 to 50 people each year in the United States. They can severely impact the built, social and natural environments by producing, mobilizing, and transporting debris, denuding slopes, and burying roadways and other critical infrastructure. Landslides have traditionally been analyzed at the site-specific scale. However, there is a growing interest, particularly in the policy realm, in assessing seismic landslide hazards and associated risks over large spatial scales. This presentation will describe a new framework to evaluate landslide risks (including economic costs and loss-of-life on an annualized basis) across regional scales. The framework involves a two-step analysis. First, a physically-based landslide hazard assessment method, called the multimodal method, is used to evaluate slope hazards across large regions. Second, the risks associated with the landslide hazards are assessed using vulnerability functions and population databases. A trial application will be presented to illustrate how this framework provides meaningful and objective information on which decision makers and other stakeholders can base their actions.


Biography: Joseph Wartman directs the Natural Hazards Reconnaissance Facility (known as the "RAPID") at the University of Washington, where he is the H.R. Berg Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. A former editor of the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, he is the author of over 100 professional articles on geologic hazards. In addition to his technical publications, Wartman's essays and op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, the Seattle Times, and the Conversation, among other mainstream media venues. He is the recipient of several research honors awards including, most recently, the Geologic Society of America's Burwell Award in engineering geology.