COLLABORATIVE RISK COMMUNICATION FOR LANDSLIDES IN PUERTO RICO

When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2017, heavy rainfall triggered more than 70,000 landslides across the island. In the aftermath of the disaster, Puerto Rican officials expressed a need for educational materials about landslide hazards to help guide residents, emergency managers, and planners in reducing landslide risk.

In 2018, the U.S. Geological Survey formed a partnership with the Natural Hazards Center and the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez (UPRM) to respond to this request with a Landslide Guide for Residents of Puerto Rico. The Guide complemented scientific products, including a landslide inventory and susceptibility map, which were simultaneously being developed by UPRM and the USGS Landslide Hazards Program. Since 2018, the interdisciplinary team has collaborated with a wide range of local institutions, including the Puerto Rico Seismic Network, the Puerto Rico Planning Board, a local science museum, and many more. A broad network of hazards professionals and researchers in Puerto Rico contributed photos, content, and revisions. The Guide’s many reviewers helped improve its scientific accuracy, accessibility, relevance to Puerto Rico, and translation of content between Spanish and English.

The Landslide Guide was released to the public in early 2020, amid a sequence of damaging earthquakes in southwest Puerto Rico. Since then, the team has developed a suite of complementary educational tools about landslides, many of which were based on stakeholder requests, which are also available for public use. These products and activities include ready-to-use presentation slides, a short animated video, webinars, promotional flyers, scripts for radio, coloring sheets, and a guided science experiment for younger audiences. Spanish and English versions of the landslide guide and derivative products are available for viewing and download from the project webpage hazards.colorado.edu/puertorico.