Wildfire

Landslide hazard and risk assessments help people understand the dangers from landslides to their towns and cities, homes, facilities, and businesses. Landslide hazard assessments are estimates of the probability that landslides will affect a particular area or location, typically within a given timeframe.

We use remote-sensing technologies—such as aerial photography, satellite imagery, structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry, and lidar (laser-based surveying)—to measure coastal change along U.S. shorelines.

This project characterizes and measures sediment-related effects of landscape disturbances (such as major storms, drought, or wildfire) and river management. We focus primarily on the U.S. west coast, and our work relates to natural hazards and resource management.

Wildfires can significantly alter the way water interacts with the landscape to the extent that even modest rainstorms can produce dangerous flash floods and debris flows. Recent fires in the western U.S. have impacted hundreds of thousands of acres of steep land, much of it public, making it susceptible to increased erosion and debris-flow activity. With the risk of severe wildfires continuing to...

A summary of recent and past landslides and debris flows caused by rainfall in northern California, and links to current shallow landslide monitoring.

A summary of recent and past landslides and debris flows caused by rainfall in Southern California.