Landslide modelling results

We are pleased to announce another joint publication of Prof. dr. Jean Poesen (Department of Geology, Soil Science and Geoinformation UMCS) published in The Journal of Hydrometeorology (JHM):

Felsberg, A., De Lannoy, G.J.M., Girotto, M., Poesen, J., Reichle, R.H., Stanley, T., 2021. Global soil water estimates as landslide predictor: the effectiveness of SMOS, SMAP and GRACE observations, land surface simulations and data assimilation. J. Hydrometeorol. https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-20-0228.1

This global feasibility study assesses the potential of coarse-scale, gridded soil water estimates for the probabilistic modeling of hydrologically-triggered landslides, using Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS), Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) remote sensing data, Catchment Land Surface Model (CLSM) simulations and six data products based on the assimilation of SMOS, SMAP, and/or GRACE observations into CLSM. SMOS or SMAP observations (~40-km resolution) are only available for less than 20% of the globally reported landslide events, because they are intermittent and uncertain in regions with complex terrain. GRACE terrestrial water storage estimates include 75% of the reported landslides but have coarse spatial and temporal resolutions (monthly, ~300-km). CLSM soil water simulations have the added advantage of complete spatial and temporal coverage, and are found to be able to distinguish between “stable slope” (no landslide) conditions and landslide-inducing conditions in a probabilistic way. Assimilating SMOS and/or GRACE data increases the landslide probability estimates based on soil water percentiles for the reported landslides, relative to model-only estimates at 36-km resolution for the period 2011-2016, unless the CLSM model-only soil water content is already high (≥ 50th percentile). The SMAP Level 4 data assimilation product (at 9-km resolution, period 2015-2019) more generally updates the soil water conditions towards higher landslide probabilities for the reported landslides, but is similar to model-only estimates for the majority of landslides where SMAP data cannot easily be converted to soil moisture owing to complex terrain.

Direct link to the article

List of publications of Institute staff

 

    News

    Date of addition
    12 March 2021