Landslide External Grants - Priorities

By Landslide Hazards Program

Each grant cycle the USGS identifies risk reduction Guidance Criteria for grant applicants. The criteria provide applicants areas of focus for landslide risk reduction. The identified Guidance Criteria are not an exhaustive list of all potential proposal topics, nor intended to discourage submission of proposals to accomplish other important landslide risk reduction tasks.

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USGS Cooperative Landslide Hazard Mapping and Assessment Program

a) Guidance Criteria

The National Landslide Preparedness Act established the National Landslide Hazards Reduction Program to address four goals:

1. Identify and understand landslide hazards and risks:

2. Reduce losses from landslides;

3. Protect communities at risk of landslide hazards; and

4. Help improve communication and emergency preparedness, including by coordinating with

communities and entities responsible for infrastructure that are at risk of landslide hazards.

To meet these four goals, the National Strategy for Landslide Loss Reduction (hereafter the “Strategy”) was written in coordination with a Federal interagency working group, identifying specific goals and strategic actions applicable to all levels of government. In consideration of the four goals above and the goals and strategic actions identified in the Strategy, the following Guidance Criteria (GC) have been articulated for Risk Reduction Proposals associated with the Cooperative Landslide Hazard Mapping and Assessment Program and are described in detail below:

GC1. Landslide hazard mapping and assessment

GC2. Planning and coordination

GC3. Education and outreach

Proposals submitted to this grant program must address at least one of the Guidance Criteria (GC1, GC2, GC3). This document summarizes some of the relevant goals and strategic actions discussed above; the USGS invites those submitting a proposal to also review the National Landslide Preparedness Act and the Strategy (Attachments C and D, respectively, in the Program Announcement) to improve their proposal alignment. The identified Guidance Criteria are not an exhaustive list of all potential proposal topics, nor intended to discourage submission of proposals to accomplish other important landslide risk reduction tasks. PIs are encouraged to reach out to USGS Project Officer to discuss potential topics.

Guidance Criteria GC1: Landslide hazard mapping and assessments

Characterizing societal risk from landslides is an interdisciplinary endeavor that requires the data, collaboration, and coordination of local, Tribal, state, territorial, and federal agencies, as well as input from communities at-risk, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. Key to the effectiveness of this work in reducing landslide losses is the development of better landslide hazard mapping and assessments. The hazard assessments can then be used to inform vulnerability and risk-assessment activities, which can in turn help identify where more-detailed hazard assessments and improved monitoring are needed to reduce the uncertainty of where, when, and why landslides could occur. These maps and assessments, combined with place-based sociological research, can also help focus outreach and communications about landslide risk reduction and preparedness. NOTE: for ANY mapping project, please provide a map of the proposed mapping area and state the size of the area in square miles. Specific protocols, methods, tools, and processes to be used for project work must be articulated for projects involve mapping landslides, susceptibility, risk, or other spatial analysis.

Risk Reduction Proposal topics may include:

Landslide hazard mapping following an established protocol and using a lidar (3DEP) DEM base map. Hazard mapping may include landslide inventory, susceptibility, runout, exposure, and risk modeling for a region, municipality, or other defined area within the applicant’s jurisdictional responsibility.
Landslide event database creation that describes spatial and temporal information related to storm events, earthquakes, or other regional landslide events. Data collected may include landslide timing, precise location, land use, damage estimates, losses, or other influences to improve the collective understanding of the impact that landslides have on people, the built environment, and ecosystem services.
Assessments to improve our understanding of landslide behavior, including where landslides will initiate and where debris could travel after an event.
A study of the influence of land use and land management practices on landslide likelihood and magnitude.
Development of best practices and tools for landslide mapping in collaboration and coordination with state, Tribal, territorial, Federal, and local governments.
Collecting and analyzing loss data from landslides.
Other topics relevant to this Guidance Criteria.

Note that for any mapping efforts that require topographic data, applicants are strongly encouraged to use lidar DEMs (e.g., data from the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP)) and to describe their usage in their proposals.

Guidance Criteria GC2: Landslide planning and coordination

Reducing landslide losses requires strategies for improving preparedness and mitigation, and for increasing the Nation’s capacity to respond to and recover effectively from landslides when they affect communities, infrastructure, and other equities. Improving preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery requires planning, collaboration, and coordination across Federal agencies; state, Tribal, territorial, and local governments; academia; private industry; and nongovernmental and community organizations. Priority area 2 seeks to fund ways to improve planning and coordination among research, private industry, land management, and emergency management communities, as well as across various levels of government to ensure that the right information is in the right hands at the right time. Such coordination includes workforce development through professional training, improving and standardizing linkages between landslide hazard science and operational entities responsible for providing watches and warnings, evacuation planning, and communication strategies. Formalizing roles and responsibilities for landslide response and research, as well as increasing coordination, will streamline landslide hazard responses and can result in improved short- and long-term outcomes to protect lives, property, infrastructure, and the environment.

Proposal topics may include:

Development of landslide emergency and technical response protocols, roles and responsibilities, procedures, products, and trainings to address local landslide emergencies. Partners may include emergency, land, and infrastructure managers, and others.
Development, coordination, and facilitation of a landslide working group that shares best practices and lessons learned for effective landslide outreach, preparedness planning, education, land use practices, and other areas of landslide risk reduction and consisting of landslide experts and emergency, land, and transportation managers, planners, and others.
Other topics relevant to this Guidance Criteria.

Guidance Criteria GC3: Landslide education, engagement, and outreach

The production of information on landslides and related hazards alone is not sufficient to reduce landslide losses and risk. Active engagement with the user community in the application and interpretation of landslide hazard information is needed for effective risk reduction. Ensuring stakeholder comprehension of landslide risk reduction products is crucial to reduce landslide losses. To develop effective mitigation strategies, early coordination of hazard and risk assessment activities with emergency managers, planners, public works, and other government officials must be a focus.. Stakeholder buy-in is a critical step in information acceptance, adoption, and use. The use of hazard maps is reduced when: (a) the users don’t know the product exist; (b) users don’t understand the underlying data; and (c) the users were not provided the opportunity for input into the development of products. Active engagement with the user community provides space for dialogue on modifications to existing risk reduction products and development of new products and trainings that make work and results more relevant and applicable. The LHP supports opportunities for engaging the user community at all levels of government.

For the best available scientific information to be used, it must be delivered in an accessible manner that is tailored to the scale and intent of the decisions and actions of its users. Effective loss reduction also requires education and training for at-risk people and communities, for land managers, and for other entities. Incorporating landslide hazard information into all-hazards planning efforts enables land managers and communities to: (a) address exposure of existing and future assets to landslide risk; (b) mitigate potential losses to the built environment, natural and cultural resources, and habitats that may be in these areas; and (c) respond and recover in ways that reduce the long-term effects of landslides.

Proposal topics may include:

Development of materials promoting landslide education, outreach, and engagement to the public.
Provide collaborative engagement opportunities (workshops, trainings, etc.) for specialists and practitioners that facilitate addressing important challenges, such as: landslide hazard mitigation, response, preparedness, resilience, or similar.
Advance coordination of messaging across multiple agencies by examining resources for education, crowdsourcing, and emergency management tools, for disseminating landslide information, landslide hazard products, and landslide emergency response.
Engage user communities to assess the efficacy of existing landslide products and elicit their suggestions for improvements and new products.
Develop new tools and products for increasing awareness of landslide hazards within the public and targeted user groups, such as emergency responders, public utilities, risk managers, decision makers, developers, and engineers.
Develop approaches for providing landslide hazard information needed for risk assessments, and landslide mitigation and response planning to decision makers, emergency responders, and the public, particularly that cross local, state, Tribal, and territorial boundaries, and various levels of government.
Develop landslide preparedness curricula and training modules for the public and for government officials including utility workers, planners and emergency, land, resources, and infrastructure.
Other topics relevant to this Guidance Criteria.