Landslide densities associated with rainfall, stand age, and topography on forested landscapes, southwestern Washington, USA

Turner, Ted; Duke, Steven D.; Fransen, Brian R.; Reiter, Maryanne; Kroll, Andrew J.; Ward, Jim W.; Bach, Janette; Justice, Tiffany; Bilby, Robert E.

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2010.01.051

Cited by 60 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Modelled landslides in the classified open forest type were found to be twice as a high as the odds of initiation in closed forest. These findings are similar to May (2003), Guthrie (2002) and Turner et al (2010) where mature forest had the lowest landslide densities. Although this study did not explore detailed causal mechanisms of landslide initiation, differences in forest cover are associated with different soil hydrological and mechanical conditions (Sidle, 1992) that may be responsible for the lower likelihood of initiation in closed forest cover.…”

Section: The Effects Of Forest Cover and Service Roads On Landslide Isupporting

confidence: 81%

“…Since landslides related to service roads in steep terrain can occur in either the fill material or the cut slopes (Jakob, 2000;VanBuskirk et al, 2005), distances upslope and downslope from roads were considered. Also, assuming road-related landslides were initiated in road fill and road cuts, only distances from roads up to 100 m were considered to have a potential influence on landslides, and consequently the distance variable was trimmed by assigning a value of 100 m to all distance observations > 100 m. Forest road data were obtained from the British Columbia Digital Road Atlas (BCDRA), which was last updated in 2007 (British Columbia Government, 2007).…”

Section: Com) Thementioning

confidence: 99%

“…We believe that this may also be true for road-related landslides on Vancouver Island and would support why we observed the relatively short-distance effect on landslides. In another Coastal Western Hemlock area in the Pacific Northwest of BC, it was observed that most road fill landslides were likely due to loss of strength in foundation soils of older roads built before the 1990s (VanBuskirk et al, 2005). Failure on newer roads built after 1995 was usually associated with inadequate road drainage (VanBuskirk et al, 2005).…”

Section: The Effects Of Forest Cover and Service Roads On Landslide Imentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, commercial forest management practices, including timber harvesting and forest road construction, contribute to greater landslide frequency than observed in natural forest areas (Jakob, 2000;Slaymaker, 2000;Guthrie, 2002). There is also general concern about a possible increase in landslide activity in response to timber harvesting and deforestation in different areas worldwide (Rickli and Graf, 2009;Turner et al, 2010;Imaizumi and Sidle, 2012;Muenchow et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…precipitation) and geomorphological (e.g. topography) influences on landslide occurrence (Turner et al, 2010). Ideally, the relationships between landslides and highly variable temporal and spatial conditions (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Forest harvesting is associated with increased landslide activity during an extreme rainstorm on Vancouver Island, Canada

Goetz

Guthrie

Brenning

2015

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Safe operations of forest practices in mountainous regions require effective development planning to mitigate hazards posed by landslides. British Columbia, Canada, has for the past 2 decades implemented landslide risk management policies aimed at reducing the impacts of the forestry industry on landslides. Consequently, it is required that timber harvesting sites be evaluated for their potential or existing impacts on terrain stability. Statistical landslide susceptibility modelling can enhance this evaluation by geographically highlighting potential hazardous areas. In addition, these statistical models can also improve our understanding of regional landslide controlling factors. The purpose of this research was to explore the regional effects of forest harvesting activities, topography, precipitation and geology on landslides initiated during an extreme rainfall event in November 2006 on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. These effects were analyzed with a nonparametric statistical method, the generalized additive model (GAM). Although topography was the strongest predictor of landslide initiation, low density forest interpreted as regrowth areas and proximity to forest service roads were jointly associated with a 6-to 9-fold increase in the odds of landslide initiation, while accounting for other environmental confounders. This result highlights the importance of continuing proper landslide risk management to control the effects of forest practices on landslide initiation.

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Section: The Effects Of Forest Cover and Service Roads On Landslide Isupporting

confidence: 81%

Section: Com) Thementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Effects Of Forest Cover and Service Roads On Landslide Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Forest harvesting is associated with increased landslide activity during an extreme rainstorm on Vancouver Island, Canada

Goetz

Guthrie

Brenning

2015

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Recent topographic evolution and erosion of the deglaciated Washington Cascades inferred from a stochastic landscape evolution model

2015

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In this study, we model postglacial surface processes and examine the evolution of the topography and denudation rates within the deglaciated Washington Cascades to understand the controls on and time scales of landscape response to changes in the surface process regime after deglaciation. The postglacial adjustment of this landscape is modeled using a geomorphic-transport-law-based numerical model that includes processes of river incision, hillslope diffusion, and stochastic landslides. The surface lowering due to landslides is parameterized using a physically based slope stability model coupled to a stochastic model of the generation of landslides. The model parameters of river incision and stochastic landslides are calibrated based on the rates and distribution of thousand-year-time scale denudation rates measured from cosmogenic 10 Be isotopes. The probability distributions of those model parameters calculated based on a Bayesian inversion scheme show comparable ranges from previous studies in similar rock types and climatic conditions. The magnitude of landslide denudation rates is determined by failure density (similar to landslide frequency), whereas precipitation and slopes affect the spatial variation in landslide denudation rates. Simulation results show that postglacial denudation rates decay over time and take longer than 100 kyr to reach time-invariant rates. Over time, the landslides in the model consume the steep slopes characteristic of deglaciated landscapes. This response time scale is on the order of or longer than glacial/interglacial cycles, suggesting that frequent climatic perturbations during the Quaternary may produce a significant and prolonged impact on denudation and topography.

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Simulating vegetation controls on hurricane‐induced shallow landslides with a distributed ecohydrological model

et al. 2015

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The spatial distribution of shallow landslides in steep forested mountains is strongly controlled by aboveground and belowground biomass, including the distribution of root cohesion. While remote sensing of aboveground canopy properties is relatively advanced, estimating the spatial distribution of root cohesion at the forest landscape scale remains challenging. We utilize canopy height information estimated using lidar (light detecting and ranging) technology as a tool to produce a spatially distributed root cohesion model for landslide hazard prediction. We characterize spatial patterns of total belowground biomass based on the empirically derived allometric relationship developed from soil pit measurements in the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory, North Carolina. The vertical distribution of roots and tensile strength were sampled at soil pits allowing us to directly relate canopy height to root cohesion and use this model within a distributed ecohydrological modeling framework, providing transient estimates of runoff, subsurface flow, soil moisture, and pore pressures. We tested our model in mountainous southern Appalachian catchments that experienced a number of landslides during the 2004 hurricane season. Slope stability estimates under the assumption of spatially uniform root cohesion significantly underpredicted both the total number of landslides and the number of "false positives," unfailed areas of the landscape that were predicted to fail. When we incorporate spatially distributed root cohesion, the accuracy of the slope stability forecast improves dramatically. With the growing availability of lidar data that can be used to infer belowground information, these methods may provide a wider utility for improving landslide hazard prediction and forecasting.

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Landslide densities associated with rainfall, stand age, and topography on forested landscapes, southwestern Washington, USA

Cited by 60 publications

References 19 publications

Forest harvesting is associated with increased landslide activity during an extreme rainstorm on Vancouver Island, Canada

Forest harvesting is associated with increased landslide activity during an extreme rainstorm on Vancouver Island, Canada

Recent topographic evolution and erosion of the deglaciated Washington Cascades inferred from a stochastic landscape evolution model

Simulating vegetation controls on hurricane‐induced shallow landslides with a distributed ecohydrological model

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