A
landslide (or landslip) is a
geological phenomenon which
includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rock falls, deep
failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in
offshore, coastal and onshore environments. Although the action of
gravity is the primary driving force for a
landslide to occur, there are other contributing factors affecting
the original
slope stability.
Typically, pre-conditional factors build up specific sub-surface
conditions that make the area/slope prone to failure, whereas the
actual landslide often requires a trigger before being
released.
Causes of landslides
Landslides are caused when the
stability
of a slope changes from a stable to an unstable condition. A
change in the stability of a slope can be caused by a number of
factors, acting together or alone. Natural causes of landslides
include:
landslides are aggravated by human activities, Human causes
include:deforestation, cultivation and construction, which
destabilize the already fragile slopes
Types of landslide
Debris flow
Slope material that becomes
saturated with
water may develop into a
debris flow or
mud flow.
The resulting slurry of
rock and mud
may pick up trees, houses and cars, thus blocking
bridges and
tributaries
causing
flooding along its path.
Debris flow is often mistaken for
flash
flood, but they are entirely different processes.
Muddy-debris flows in
alpine areas
cause severe damage to structures and infrastructure and often
claim human lives.Muddy-debris flows can start as a result of
slope-related factors and shallow landslides can dam
stream beds, resulting in temporary water
blockage. As the impoundments fail, a "
domino
effect" may be created, with a remarkable growth in the volume of
the flowing mass, which takes up the
debris
in the stream channel. The solid-liquid mixture can reach densities
of up to 2 tons/m³ and velocities of up to 14 m/s
(Chiarle and Luino, 1998; Arattano, 2003). These processes normally
cause the first severe road interruptions, due not only to deposits
accumulated on the road (from several cubic metres to hundreds of
cubic metres), but in some cases to the complete removal of bridges
or roadways or railways crossing the stream channel. Damage usually
derives from a common underestimation of mud-debris flows: in the
alpine valleys, for example, bridges are frequently destroyed by
the impact force of the flow because their span is usually
calculated only for a water discharge. For a small basin in the
Italian Alps (area = 1.76 km²) affected by a debris flow,
Chiarle and Luino (1998) estimated a peak discharge of 750
m
3/s for a section located in the middle
stretch of the main channel. At the same cross section, the maximum
foreseeable water discharge (by HEC-1), was 19 m³/s, a value about
40 times lower than that calculated for the debris flow that
occurred.
Earth flow
Earthflows are downslope, viscous flows of
saturated, fine-grained materials, which move at any speed from
slow to fast. Typically, they can move at speeds from 0.17 to
20 km/h. Though these are a lot like
mudflows, overall they are slower moving and are
covered with solid material carried along by flow from within. They
are different from fluid flows in that they are more rapid. Clay,
fine sand and silt, and fine-grained, pyroclastic material are all
susceptible to earthflows. The velocity of the earthflow is all
dependent on how much water content is in the flow itself: if there
is more water content in the flow, the higher the velocity will
be.
These flows usually begin when the pore pressures in a fine-grained
mass increase until enough of the weight of the material is
supported by pore water to significantly decrease the internal
shearing strength of the material. This thereby creates a bulging
lobe which advances with a slow, rolling motion. As these lobes
spread out, drainage of the mass increases and the margins dry out,
thereby lowering the overall velocity of the flow. This process
causes the flow to thicken. The bulbous variety of earthflows are
not that spectacular, but they are much more common than their
rapid counterparts. They develop a sag at their heads and are
usually derived from the slumping at the source.
Earthflows occur much more during periods of high precipitation,
which saturates the ground and adds water to the slope content.
Fissures develop during the movement of clay-like material creates
the intrusion of water into the earthflows. Water then increases
the pore-water pressure and reduces the shearing strength of the
material.
Debris avalanche
A
debris avalanche is a type of
slide characterized by the chaotic movement of rocks soil and
debris mixed with water or ice (or both). They are usually
triggered by the saturation of thickly vegetated slopes which
results in an incoherent mixture of broken timber, smaller
vegetation and other debris.Debris avalanches differ from debris
slides because their movement is much more rapid. This is usually a
cause of lower cohesion or higher water content and commonly
steeper slopes
Movement
Debris slides generally begin with large blocks that slump at the
head of the slide and then break apart as they move towards the
toe. This process is much slower than that of a debris avalanche.
In a debris avalanche this progressive failure is very rapid and
the entire mass seems to somewhat liquefy as it moves down the
slope. This is caused by the combination of the excessive
saturation of the material, and very steep slopes. As the mass
moves down the slope it generally follows stream channels leaving
behind a V-shaped scar that spreads out downhill. This differs from
the more U-shaped scar of a
slump.
Debris avalanches can also travel well past the foot of the slope
due to their tremendous speed.
Sturzstrom
A
sturzstrom is a rare, poorly understood
type of landslide, typically with a long run-out. Often very large,
these slides are unusually mobile, flowing very far over a low
angle, flat, or even slightly uphill terrain.
Shallow landslide
Landslide in which the sliding surface is located within the
soil mantle or
weathered bedrock
(typically to a depth from few decimetres to some metres). They
usually include debris slides,
debris
flow, and failures of road cut-slopes. Landslides occurring as
single large blocks of rock moving slowly down slope are sometimes
called block glides.
Shallow landslides can often happen in areas that have slopes with
high permeable soils on top of low permeable bottom soils. The low
permeable, bottom soils trap the water in the shallower, high
permeable soils creating high water pressure in the top soils. As
the top soils are filled with water and become heavy, slopes can
become very unstable and slide over the low permeable bottom soils.
Say there is a slope with silt and sand as its top soil and bedrock
as its bottom soil. During an intense rainstorm, the bedrock will
keep the rain trapped in the top soils of silt and sand. As the
topsoil becomes saturated and heavy, it can start to slide over the
bedrock and become a shallow landslide.R. H. Campbell did a study
on shallow landslides on Santa Cruz Island California. He notes
that if permeability decreases with depth, a perched water table
may develop in soils at intense precipitation. When
pore water pressures are sufficient to
reduce effective normal stress to a critical level, failure
occurs.
Deep-seated landslide
Landslides in which the sliding surface is mostly deeply located
below the maximum rooting depth of trees (typically to depths
greater than ten meters). Deep-seated landslides usually involve
deep
regolith, weathered rock, and/or
bedrock and include large slope failure
associated with translational, rotational, or complex
movement.
Causing tsunami
Landslides that occur undersea, or have impact into water, can
generate
tsunamis. Massive landslides can
also generate
megatsunamis, which are
usually hundreds of metres high.
In 1958, one such tsunami occurred in Lituya Bay
in Alaska.
Related phenomena
- An avalanche, similar in mechanism to
a landslide, involves a large amount of ice, snow and rock falling
quickly down the side of a mountain.
- A pyroclastic flow is caused by
a collapsing cloud of hot ash, gas and
rocks from a volcanic explosion that moves rapidly down an erupting
volcano.
Landslide prediction mapping

Global landslide risks.
Landslide hazard analysis and mapping can provide useful
information for catastrophic loss reduction, and assist in the
development of guidelines for sustainable land use planning. The
analysis is used to identify the factors that are related to
landslides, estimate the relative contribution of factors causing
slope failures, establish a relation between the factors and
landslides, and to predict the landslide hazard in the future based
on such a relationship . The factors that have been used for
landslide hazard analysis can usually be grouped into
geomorphology,
geology,
land use/land cover, and
hydrogeology .
Since many factors are considered for landslide hazard mapping,
GIS is an appropriate tool because it has
functions of collection, storage, manipulation, display, and
analysis of large amounts of spatially referenced data which can be
handled fast and effectively .
Remote
sensing techniques are also highly employed for landslide
hazard assessment and analysis. Before and after aerial photographs
and satellite imagery are used to gather landslide characteristics,
like distribution and classification, and factors like slope,
lithology, and land use/land cover to be
used to help predict future events . Before and after imagery also
helps to reveal how the landscape changed after an event, what may
have triggered the landslide, and shows the process of regeneration
and recovery .
Using satellite imagery in combination with GIS and on-the-ground
studies, it is possible to generate maps of likely occurrences of
future landslides . Such maps should show the locations of previous
events as well as clearly indicate the probable locations of future
events. In general, to predict landslides, one must assume that
their occurrence is determined by certain geologic factors, and
that future landslides will occur under the same conditions as past
events . Therefore, it is necessary to establish a relationship
between the geomorphologic conditions in which the past events took
place and the expected future conditions .
Natural disasters are a dramatic
example of people living in conflict with the environment. Early
predictions and warnings are essential for the reduction of
property damage and loss of life. Because landslides occur
frequently and can represent some of the most destructive forces on
earth, it is imperative to have a good understanding as to what
causes them and how people can either help prevent them from
occurring or simply avoid them when they do occur. Sustainable land
management and development is an essential key to reducing the
negative impacts felt by landslides.
GIS offers a superior method for landslide analysis because it
allows one to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, and display
large amounts of data quickly and effectively. Because so many
variables are involved, it is important to be able to overlay the
many layers of data to develop a full and accurate portrayal of
what is taking place on the earth’s surface. Researchers need to
know which variables are the most important factors that trigger
landslides in any given location. Using GIS, extremely detailed
maps can be generated to show past events and likely future events
which have the potential to save lives, property, and money.
Prehistoric landslides
- The Agulhas slide, ca.
20,000 km³, off South Africa,
post-Pliocene in age, the largest so far
described
- The
Storegga
Slide
, Norway
, ca.
3,500 km³, ca. 8,000 years ago
- The
Ruatoria debris avalanche, off North Island
New
Zealand
, ca. 3,000 km³ in volume, 170,000 years
ago[6339].
- The
landslide around 200BC which formed Lake Waikaremoana
on the North Island
of New
Zealand
, where a large block of the Ngamoko Range slid and
dammed a gorge of Waikaretaheke River between the Ngamoko and
Panekiri ranges, forming a natural reservior up to 248 metres
deep.
- Landslide which moved Heart
Mountain
to its current location, Park County,
Wyoming
, the largest ever discovered on land.
Historical landslides
19th Century
20th Century
- Frank
Slide
, Turtle Mountain, Alberta
, Canada
, on 29 April
1903
- Gros Ventre landslide
in Wyoming
, United States
, on June 23, 1925
- Mount Serrat landslide in Santos, Brazil
on March 1928.
- Ricardo Calma landslide in Peru on February 1932
- Tantaday landslide in Peru on March 1933
- Lokchang (present day of Lechang) landslide
in Shaoguan
, Guangdong
, China on May 1934
- Tsumagoi
mudslide with Kogushi sulphur mine damage in
Gunma
, Japan on November 1937.
- Mount Rokko
mudslide by heavy rain in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan on July 1938.
- Mongui
village
landslide in Boyaca, Colombia on November
1941.
- Guwahati
Landslide in Assam
, India on
September 1948.
- Khait
landslide, Khait, Tajikistan
, Soviet
Union
, on July 10, 1949
- Condor Hill landslide in Ancash
, Peru on
January 1951.
- Mapou landslide by Hurricane
Hazel in Haiti on October 1954.
- Molina di Vietri and Ponte Romano landslide in Salerno
, Italy on October 1954.
- Shillong landslide in Meghalaya
, India on June 1958
- The
Riñihuazo landslide in Chile
after the
Great
Chilean Earthquake
, on 22 May 1960
- Babi
Yar
landslide in Kurenivka,
Ukraine
on April 1961.
- Ranrahirca landslide in Peru on
January 1962.
- Tara
landslide
in Kyushu
, Japan, on
July 1962
- Tampayacta landslide in Peru on March 1963.
- Changsungpo village landslide in Koje Island
, South Korea on June 1963.
- Chepe Ghat landslide in Gorkha
District, Nepal on August 1963.
- Monte
Toc
landslide (260 millions cubic metres) falling into
the Vajont
Dam
basin in Italy, causing a megatsunami and about 2000 casualties, on
October 9, 1963
- Hope
Slide
landslide (46 million cubic metres) near Hope,
British Columbia
on January 9, 1965.
- El Cobre landslide
with El Soldado cooper mine damage in Atacama
, Chile on February 1965.
- The
1966 Aberfan
disaster

- Santa
Teresa landslide in Rio State
, Brazil on February 1967.
- Caraguatatuba landslide in State of São
Paulo
, Brazil on March 1967.
- Kure mudslide by Typhoon
Billie in Hiroshima
, Japan on July 1967.
- Hida
River
landslide with two charter buses plunge in Gero, Gifu
, Japan on August 1968.
- Darjeeling
landslide in West Bengal
on October 1968.
- Amherst and
Nelson landslide by Hurricane Camille in Virginia
on August 1969.
- the
May 31, 1970 slide from Cerro Huascaran
that buried the town of Yungay.
- Cauca River valley landslide in Caldas,
Colombia, on December 1970
- Chungar landslide by avalanche in Peru,
on March 1971.
- Saint-Jean-Vianney
, Quebec
, Canada
.
Small village near Saguenay river destroyed in May 1971.
- Khinjan Pass landslide in Baghian, Afghanistan on July
1971.
- Tosayamada
landslide in Shikoku
, Japan on July 1972.
- Amakusa
mudslide in Kumamoto, Kyushu, Japan on July
1972.
- Moyomarca hill mudslide in Huancayo
, Peru on April 1974.
- Quebradablanca avalanche with swept 33 vehicle in Boyaca, Colombia on June 1974.
- Pahire Phedi landslide in Nepal on June 1976.
- Baliem Valley
landslide by 1976
Papua earthquake in Irian Jaya
, Indonesia on July 1976.
- Nilgiri Hills
landslide in Tamil
Nadu
, India on November 1978
- The
1979
Abbotsford landslip
, Dunedin
, New
Zealand
on August 8, 1979.
- Landslides associated with the Mount St.
Helens
eruption on May 18, 1980.
- Mount Semeru landslide by heavy rain in East Java, Indonesia on August 1981
- Nakajima landslide in Nagasaki, Kyushu,
Japan on July 1982
- Ataco
mudslide in El
Salvador
on
September 1982
- Dongxing landslide in Gansu
, China, on
March 1983
- Thistle, Utah
on 14 April 1983
- Chunchi mudslide in Chimborazo,
Ecuador on April 1983
- Almora landslide in Uttar Pradesh
, India on July 1983
- Dongchuan landslide in Yunnan
, China on
May 1984
- The Mameyes
Disaster - Ponce,
Puerto Rico
on October 7, 1985
- Val Pola
landslide during Valtellina
disaster (1987) Italy

- El
Limon
mudslide in Aragua
, Venezuela
on September 1987.
- Villatina
mudslide in Colombia on September 1987.
- Wuxi County landslide in Sichuan,
China on September 1987.
- Macka
landslide in Trabzon
, Turkey on June 1988
- Darwang and Niskot landslide in Myagdi
, Nepal on
September 1988.
- Sharora landslide by 1989 Tajikistan
earthquale in Hisor
District
,
Tajikistan on January 1989.
- Tsablanca landslide in Georgia
on April 1989.
- Bhaji
landslide in Maharashtra
, India on July 1989
- Calama mudslide in
Atacama
, Chile on June 1991.
- 1991 Punjabi landslide,
[India] on 11 June, 1991.
- Zhaotong
landslide by torrential rain, in Yunnan
, China on
September 1991
- Ninghai
mudslide in Zhejiang, China on September
1992.
- Nambija Bajo mudslide in Zamora,
Ecuador on May 1993.
- The
Pantai Remis
landslide
in 1993 in an abandoned coastal tin mine in
Malaysia
, forming a new cove
- Kagoshima mudslide in Kyushu, Japan on
August 1993.
- Yuangyang
mudslide in Yunnan
, China on
July 1994
- Khooni Nallah and Banihal tunnel avalanche in Jammu and
Kashimir region, India on January 1995.
- Wakhan landslide in Badakhshan, Afghanistan on April 1995.
- Cheorwon
landslide in Gangwon, South
Korea on July 1996.
- Tamburco mudslide by torrential rain in Apurimac Region, Peru on February 1997.
- Thredbo landslide,
Australia on 30 July 1997, destroyed
hostel.
- Pithoragarh mudslide in Uttar Pradesh
, India on August 1998
- Lishui
landslide
in Zhejiang
, China on September 1999
- The Vargas
tragedy, due to heavy rains in Vargas
State, Venezuela
, on December, 1999, causing tens of thousands of
casualties.
21st Century
- La
Conchita mudslide in California
, United
States
on January 10, 2005, killed 10 people and destroyed
18 homes
- Jaigaon mudslide in Maharashtra, India on July 2005
- Southern Leyte landslide in the
Philippines
on 17 February 2006
- Devil's Slide
, an ongoing landslide in San Mateo
County, California
- Landslide in Sulawesi
, Indonesia, June 2006.
- Liangshan
mudslide in Sichuan, China on May 2007
- 2007
Chittagong mudslide, in Chittagong
, Bangladesh
, on June 11, 2007.
- 2008 Cairo landslide
on September 6, 2008.
- Xiangfen
County mudslide with unlicensed Tashan coal mine collapse in
Shanxi
, China on
September 2008.
- Lincang
mudslide in Yunnan, China on November
2008
- Wulong
mudslide
in Chongqing
, China on July 2009
- Hofu mudslide in Yamaguchi, Japan on July
2009.
- Liuzhou
, Guangxi Region,
China
- derailed
train, killing 4
- Shiaolin landslide by Typhoon Morakot in Tainan County, Taiwan on August 2009
- Nile
Valley Landslide, no injuries but destroyed some houses,
obliterated a quarter mile of Washington State Route 410 and
redirecting the Naches River 10 miles west of Naches
, Washington
on 11 October, 2009.
- Bayambang and
Alcala landslide in Benguet
, Philippines on October 2009.
- San Vicente
and San
Salvador
mudslide by
Hurricane Ida in El Salvador on
November 2009.
Extraterrestrial landslides

Landslide in progress on Mars,
2-19-2008.
Evidence of past landslides has been detected on many bodies in the
solar system, but since most observations are made by probes that
only observe for a limited time and most bodies in the solar system
appear to be geologically inactive not many landslides are known to
have happened in recent times. Both Venus and Mars have been
subject to long-term mapping by orbiting satellites, and examples
of landslides have been observed on both.
See also
References
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geo-spatial systems for hazard assessment in mountainous
environments. Remote Sensing of Environment 98:
284-303.
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and GIS technologies as tools to support sustainable management of
areas devastated by landslides. Environment, Development, and
Sustainability 4: 221-229.
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prediction of future landslides possible with a GIS? Natural
Hazards 30: 487-499.
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susceptibility and factor effect analysis. Environmental
Geology 47: 982-990.
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regression and GIS technology to predict landslide hazard in
northeast Kansas, USA. Engineering Geology 69(3-4):
331-343.
External links