Publications

No abstract available.

Recent advances in remote sensing of rainfall provide more detailed temporal and spatial data on rainfall distribution. Four case studies of abundant debris flows over relatively small areas triggered during intense rainstorms are examined noting the potential for using remotely sensed rainfall data for landslide hazard analysis. Three examples with rainfall estimates from National...

In some mountainous terrain, debris flows preferentially initiate from the toes and margins of larger, deeper, slower-moving landslides. During the wet winter of 1997, we began real-time monitoring of the large, active Cleveland Corral landslide complex in California, USA. When the main slide is actively moving, small, shallow, first-time slides on the toe and margins mobilize into...

This study examines the rationale of Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) for analyzing dynamic and earthquake motion recordings in studies of seismology and engineering. In particular, this paper first provides the fundamentals of the HHT method, which consist of the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and the Hilbert spectral analysis. It then uses the HHT to analyze recordings of hypothetical...

In many developing countries, volcanic debris flows pose a significant societal risk owing to the distribution of dense populations that commonly live on or near a volcano. At many volcanoes, modest volume (up to 500,000 m 3) debris flows are relatively common (multiple times per century) and typically flow at least 5 km along established drainages. Owing to typical debris-flow...

Models that employ a fixed rheology cannot yield accurate interpretations or predictions of debris-flow motion, because the evolving behavior of debris flows is too complex to be represented by any rheological equation that uniquely relates stress and strain rate. Field observations and experimental data indicate that debris behavior can vary from nearly rigid to highly fluid as a...

No abstract available.

These maps present preliminary assessments of the probability of debris-flow activity and estimates of peak discharges that can potentially be generated by debris flows issuing from basins burned by the Old and Grand Prix Fires of October 2003 in southern California in response to the 25-year, 10-year, and 2-year recurrence, 1-hour duration rain storms. The probability maps are based on...

We have used stratigraphic and historic records of debris-flows to estimate mean recurrence intervals of past debris-flow events on 19 fans along the Interstate 70 highway corridor in the Front Range of Colorado. Estimated mean recurrence intervals were used in the Poisson probability model to estimate the probability of future debris-flow events on the fans. Mean recurrence intervals...

Landslides in the hilly terrain along the Kansas and Missouri rivers in northeastern Kansas have caused millions of dollars in property damage during the last decade. To address this problem, a statistical method called multiple logistic regression has been used to create a landslide-hazard map for Atchison, Kansas, and surrounding areas. Data included digitized geology, slopes, and...

At 4393 m, ice-clad Mount Rainier has great potential for debris flows owing to its precipitous slopes and incised steep valleys, the large volume of water stored in its glaciers, and a mantle of loose debris on its slopes. In the past 10,000 years, more than sixty Holocene lahars have occurred at Mount Rainier (Scott et al., 1985), and, in addition more than thirty debris flows not...

No abstract available.