NATIONAL LANDSLIDE SUSCEPTIBILITY MAP

Landslides are damaging and deadly, and they occur in every U.S. state. However, our current ability to understand them at the national scale is limited, in part because the available data varies greatly in quality, accessibility, and extent. Our landslide inventory and landslide susceptibility map fixes this by providing an openly accessible, centralized source of landslide information across the entire country.

BUILDING A LANDSLIDE MAP

STANDARD APPROACH

• Different agencies keep their own landslide records, often in various formats and for specific regions. The USGS standardized a nationwide landslide inventory, formatting all data in a consistent way.

HIGH RESOLUTION

• Using high-resolution 90-meter elevation data, USGS produced an incredibly detailed map of landslide susceptibility for the entire U.S. and Puerto Rico.

INVENTORY CONFIDENCE

• Given the wide range of landslide information sources, the USGS inventory provides an attribute for the relative confidence in the characterization of the location and extent of each landslide.

BY THE NUMBERS

• 44% - Percent of the country that could experience landslide activity, potentially catastrophically
• 900k - Number of landslides included in the national landslide inventory and susceptibility assessment
• $4B - Annual losses attributed to landslide activity across the United States and Puerto Rico

INTERACTIVE ONLINE LANDSLIDE TOOL

Landslide inventories represent collections of where landslides have occurred, including important details about each event. This information is essential for determining where and why landslides occur, as well as aiding with risk reduction efforts.