ESTIMATING AND MANAGING RISK FROM ROCKFALL AND LANDSLIDES IN NATIONAL PARKS (Invited Presentation)

It is National Park Service (NPS) policy to devise effective strategies to identify geologic hazards and to strive to understand them and minimize risk, or the hazard’s potential impact on visitors, staff, and developed areas. Rockfall and landslides are hazards that can potentially affect a large number of National Park Service managed lands. Recent efforts to assess the risk imposed by rockfall and landslides at various National Park units have used a quantitative risk estimation method to try to place risk to individuals and visitor populations into a societal context. The two main goals of this method are to provide risk comparisons that are accessible to managers who may not be trained in physical sciences and to provide a method that is scalable depending on the amount of information available about the hazard. Paired with quantitative risk estimates, the National Park Service is experimenting with monitoring techniques such as crack monitors and ground based radar interferometry in areas that have high visitation or critical infrastructure. In addition, the National Park Service is actively working with the Federal Highways Administration and other federal land management agencies to develop an Unstable Slope Management System to inventory and proactively manage rockfall and landslide issues in Parks through a set of online and mobile database tools. These efforts attempt to bring together a Servicewide approach to landslide and rockfall risk management.