NEW APPROACHES TO LANDSLIDE HAZARD AND RISK ASSESSMENT LEVERAGING REMOTE SENSING AND CITIZEN SCIENCE

Effective communication of landslide hazard and risk is highly contingent on the quality, reliability, and accessibility of spatiotemporal data available to conduct these analyses, which varies tremendously over different geographic regions. In order to advance our understanding of where and when landslides have occurred in the past and estimate future landslide activity, we have developed several new approaches that leverage remote sensing data and citizen science audiences. First, a Landslide Hazard Assessment model for Situational Awareness has been developed to provide near global estimation of potential landslide activity by combining susceptibility information with satellite-based precipitation. This model provides nearly real-time estimates of where landslide activity is more likely. In order to validate this system, we have developed a Global Landslide Catalog (GLC) over the past decade that contains over 11,000 landslide reports that are publicly accessible at https://landslides.nasa.gov. A second approach encourages citizen scientists to contribute landslide reports through an Esri-based web application called Landslide Reporter. The project, launched in March 2018, already has over 70 contributions from 15 countries. Through the fusion of globally available landslide model estimates and an open catalog of landslides contributed by both the research community and interested public, we are seeking to better understand the frequency and distribution of landslide impacts globally. We also are hoping to expand the opportunities to communicate landslide hazard and risk to diverse audiences, as well as involve them in the fact-finding process of identifying where and when landslides may happen or have happened in their area. This presentation will outline these new activities as well as discuss some of the lessons learned in communicating landslide hazard and launching the Landslide Reporter project. Specifically we will address what outreach methods have been most successful in increasing participation in our citizen science project, how people learned about our global landslide modeling work, and what future opportunities and challenges we see for communicating landslide hazard to different audiences.