CHALLENGES WITH CONDUCTING LANDSLIDE INVENTORIES

Landslide is a generic term for a variety of mass movements, that occur over a wide range of velocities, at different scales, and in a variety of materials. Landslide inventories generally involve the creation of maps and databases. Landslides are usually mapped as points if they are small or as polygons if they are large enough to delimit at the map scale used. Temporal attributes may be included on maps and in databases.

In this presentation I will examine factors that present challenges for landslide inventories. These include the following landslide attributes: type, state of activity, age, size, detectibility, geometry and complexity.

The purpose of the inventory should govern the type of mapping method used. For example, cataloging damage after a single event storm, requires a different inventory and mapping system than that used for paleoclimatic research, for general slope stability mapping, or for sediment delivery to streams.