Landslide triggers and hazards

The fringes of extensive flat-topped sedimentary or volcanic plateaus, called tablelands, host the largest coalescent landslide areas of the Earth. This Review highlights the factors contributing to extensive landslide fringes and emphasizes how climate change and cryosphere degradation could increase their hazard potential.

Regional variations in critical rainfall patterns are more significant than differences between processes in a warming climate, with increased probability of occurrence and affected area, according to analysis of the critical rainfall conditions for debris-flow initiation in Austria between 2003 and 2022.

The energy transfer rate from a two-dimensional subaerial landslide to the tsunami produced may be limited to a value of about 70 % in the far field, according to Navier-Stokes simulations.

A massive buried North Sea landslide occurred due to the collapse of a fault-generated footwall crest of crystalline basement rocks, according to analysis of broadband seismic data.

Combining field and laboratory experiments with autonomous monitoring can provide a comprehensive framework for more effective landslide hazard prediction, as revealed by a monitoring system that continuously records relevant soil and environmental parameters.

The size distribution and hazard of Earth’s largest terrestrial landslides vary distinctively with dominant topographic settings, with volcanoes and fault-bounded range fronts releasing the largest landslide volumes, according to analysis of Bayesian regression models of 411 large landslides.

Debris-flow surges can form from the spontaneous growth of small surface instabilities into large waves that amplify flow destructiveness, according to high-resolution in situ measurements combined with a friction inversion and numerical simulations.

The combination of topography, as a driver for extreme precipitation, and slope instability from seismicity contributed to the compound hazard of post-seismic rainfall-induced landslides, according to an analysis of precipitation and landslide data.

The role of topographic amplification of seismic waves on the genesis of co-seismic landslides is overestimated near the rupture zone of large earthquakes where ground motion is high, according to numerical simulations and field observations of the 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorhka earthquake, Nepal.

Seismic ground shaking could cause 60%–75% reduction in near-surface shear strength of hillslopes, according to a model that combines physical and data-driven modelling approaches.

Data-driven coseismic landslide prediction, which usually relies on scalar ground motion intensity data, can be improved by analysing the full seismic wavefield using an interpretable transformer neural network, suggests a study of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, Nepal.

While earthquakes are known to trigger landslides and initiate hazard cascades, the authors show that landslide hazard cascades can instead trigger earthquakes by increasing stresses on faults through direct loading and pore pressure diffusion.

New study reveals previously hidden landslide processes using distributed fiber optic sensing with nanostrain-rate sensitivity. The evolution of a slow-moving landslide during rainfall is captured with high spatiotemporal resolution.

The tsunami from the Storegga slide 8,150 years ago was caused by a smaller submarine landslide than previously thought, which implies higher hazard in the region, according to analyses of geophysical data and sediment cores that suggest an older origin of part of the scar.

The product of slope and precipitation, along with hillslope aspects, are the main physical factors responsible for landslides in the easternmost Himalayas, according to an interpretable superposable neural network model.

The area affected by a landslide analogous to an Alpine foreland event in 2009 could be up to 45% larger under 4 K of global warming, or 10% if warming is limited in line with the Paris Agreement, according to simulations of event storylines with varying climate, soil moisture and land use.

Reconstruction of the paleo-shoreline of South China Sea 0.54 million years ago suggests the Baiyun landslide generated waves of around 18 meters in height and highlights the importance of shoreline reconstructions for paleo-tsunami modelling

A large, slow-moving landslide underlying the city of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has accelerated in recent decades due to hydrological modifications related to urbanization, according to an analysis of aerial photographs and remote-sensing data.

Bathymetric surveys of the submarine Congo Canyon show damming by canyon-flank landslides led to the temporary storage of substantial masses of sediment and organic carbon, interrupting their transport to the deep sea.

Human modifications to the environment can amplify the secondary impacts of earthquakes, such as landslides, liquefaction and tsunamis. This Perspective explores the relationships between environmental modification and earthquake-triggered hazards to identify potential solutions for hazard mitigation.

Detection, monitoring and prediction are essential to managing landslide risks. This Technical Review examines the use of remote-sensing technology in tracking landslides and mitigating disaster.

Observations and samples from the central Himalayas show that a giant rockslide occurring around 1190 ad in the Annapurna massif led to the collapse of an elevated palaeo-summit, illustrating the episodic mode of erosion of the glaciated high relief by mega-rockslides.

More settlements will suffer as heavy rains and unregulated construction destabilize slopes in the tropics, models show.