A global landslide catalog for hazard applications: method, results, and limitations

A systematic inventory of landslide events over the globe is valuable for estimating human and economic losses, quantifying the relationship between landslide occurrences and climate variations and for evaluating emerging global landslide prediction efforts based on remote sensing data. This study compiles a landslide catalog for rainfalltriggered events for several years, drawing upon news reports, scholarly articles, and other hazard databases to provide a landslide catalog at the global scale. While this database may only represent a subset of rainfall-triggered landslides globally, due to lack of reports, it presents a lower boundary on the number of events globally and provides initial insight into the spatiotemporal statistical trends in landslide distribution and impact. This article develops a methodology for landslide event compilation that can be used in evaluating global landslide forecasting initiatives and assessing patterns in landslide distribution and frequency worldwide. D. B. Kirschbaum (&) A. Lerner-Lam Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, 61 Route 9W, Palisades, NY 10964, USA e-mail: [email protected] R. Adler NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA R. Adler ESSIC, University of Maryland College Park, 2207 Computer and Space Sciences Building (#224), College Park, MD 20742, USA Y. Hong School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences, National Weather Center, University of Oklahoma, 120 David L. Boren Blvd., Suite 3642, Norman, OK 73072, USA S. Hill Department of Geography, East Carolina University, Brewster Building A-227, Greenville, NC 27858, USA 123 Nat Hazards (2010) 52:561–575 DOI 10.1007/s11069-009-9401-4