Ben Mirus
I am interested in physical processes in hydrology, particularly as they relate to weather-induced landslides. My research has focused on improving quantitative characterization of surface and near-surface hydrological-response dynamics, including infiltration, soil moisture redistribution, runoff generation, groundwater recharge, pedogenesis, preferential flow, and mathematical modeling.
Biography
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2015-present Research Geologist, Landslides Hazards Program, USGS, Golden, CO
2013-2014 Assistant Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
2010-2013 Hydrologist, Unsaturated Zone Flow Project, USGS, Menlo Park, CA
2005-2009 Physical Scientist, Unsaturated Zone Flow Project, USGS, Menlo Park, CA
EDUCATION
2009 Ph.D. in Hydrogeology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
2001 B.A. in Geology, Pomona College, Claremont, CA
PUBLICATIONS
Thomas, M, BB Mirus, B Collins, N Lu, J Godt. 2018. Variability in soil-water retention properties and implications for physics-based simulation of landslide early warning criteria, Landslides, doi:10.1007/s10346-018-0950-z. [Link]
Mirus, BB, BA Ebel, C Mohr, N Zegre. 2017. Disturbance Hydrology: Preparing for an Increasingly Disturbed Future, Water Resources Research, WRCR22964, doi:10.1002/2017WR021084. [Link]
Mirus, BB, JB Smith, RL Baum. 2017. Hydrologic Impacts of Landslide Disturbances: Implications for Remobilization and Hazard Persistence, Water Resources Research, WRCR22885, doi:10.1002/2017WR020842. [Link]
Smith, JB, RL Baum, BB Mirus, A Michel, B Stark. 2017. Results of Hydrologic Monitoring on Landslide Prone Coastal Bluffs near Mukilteo, Washington. U.S. Geological Survey – Open-File Report 2017–1095, 47 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20171095.
Mirus, BB, JB Smith, RL Baum. 2017. Shallow Landslide Assessment of Coastal Bluffs along Puget Sound using a Physics-Based Hydro-Mechanical Model, in De Graff, J.V., and Shakur, A., eds. Landslides: Putting Experience, Knowledge and Emerging Technologies into Practice, Association of Environmental & Engineering Geologists (AEG), Special Publication 27, ISBN: 978-0-9897253-7-8, p. 442-454.
Scheevel, C, RL Baum, BB Mirus, JB Smith. 2017. Precipitation Thresholds for Landslide Occurrence near Mukilteo and Everett, Washington. U.S. Geological Survey – Open File Report 2017–1039, 51 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20171039. [Link]
Chen, P, BB Mirus. N Lu, JW Godt, 2017. Effect of hydraulic hysteresis on the stability of infinite slopes under steady infiltration. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)GT.1943-5606.0001724. [Link]
Nimmo, JR, K Creasey, K Perkins, BB Mirus. 2016. Preferential flow, diffuse flow, and perching in an interbedded fractured-rock unsaturated zone. Hydrogeology Journal, DOI: 10.1007/s10040-016-1496-6. [Link]
McGuire, LA, FK Rengers, JW Kean, JA Coe, BB Mirus, RL Baum, JW Godt, 2016, Elucidating the role of vegetation in the initiation of rainfall-induced shallow landslides: Insights from an extreme rainfall event in the Colorado Front Range. Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2016GL070741. [Link]
Mirus, B.B., Smith, J.B., Stark, Benjamin, Lewis, York, Michel, Abigail, and Baum, R.L., 2016, Assessing landslide potential on coastal bluffs near Mukilteo, Washington—Geologic site characterization for hydrologic monitoring: U.S. Geological Survey Open - File Report 2016–1082, 28 p., DOI:10.3133/ofr20161082. [Link]
Mirus, BB, J Smith, J Godt, R Baum, J Coe. 2016. Simulated Effect of Topography and Soil Properties on Hydrologic Response and Landslide Potential in the Oregon Coast Range, USA, in Aversa, S., Cascini, L., Picarelli, L., and Claudio, S., eds., Landslides and Engineered Slopes: Experience, Theory and Practice, © 2016 Associazione Geotecnica Italiana, Rome, Italy, ISBN 978-1-138-02988-0, p. 1431-1439. [Download File]
Tashie, A, BB Mirus, T Pavelsky. 2016. Identifying long term empirical relationships between storm characteristics and episodic groundwater recharge. Water Resources Research, DOI:10.1002/2015WR017876. [Link]
Fatichi, S., ER Vivoni, F Ogden, VY Ivanov, BB Mirus, D Gochis, CW Downer, M Camporese, J Davison, BA Ebel, N Jones, J Kim, G Mascaro, R Niswonger, P Restrepo, R Rigon, S Shen, M Sulis, D Tarboton. 2016. An overview of current applications, challenges, and future trends in distributed process-based models in hydrology. Journal of Hydrology, DOI:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.03.026. [Link]
Mirus, BB, KJ Halford, DS Sweetkind, JM Fenelon. 2016. Testing the suitability of geologic frameworks for extrapolating hydraulic properties across regional scales. Hydrogeology Journal, DOI:10.1007/s10040-016-1375-1. [Link]
Percy, M, S Schmidtt, D Riveros-Iregui, BB Mirus. 2016. Investigating landscape hydrology across sharp hydroclimatologic, geologic, and anthropogenic gradients in the Galapagos Archipelago. WIREs Water, DOI:10.1002/wat2.1145. [Link]
Mirus, BB. 2015. Evaluating the importance of characterizing soil structure and horizons in parameterizing a hydrologic process model. Hydrological Processes, DOI: 10.1002/hyp.10592. [Link]
Perkins, K, BB Mirus, B Johnston. 2014. Measurement of Unsaturated Hydraulic Properties and Evaluation of Property-Transfer Models of Deep Sediments, Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho: U.S. Geological Survey – Scientific Investigations Report, 2014-5406, . p26. [Link]
Ebel BA, BB Mirus. 2014. Disturbance hydrology: challenges and opportunities, Hydrological Processes, 28; pages 5140–5148, DOI:10.1002/hyp.10256 [Link]
Kampf, SK, BB Mirus. 2013. Subsurface and surface flow leading to channel initiation, in J Shroder Jr., E Wohl (eds.), Treatise in Geomorphology, Elsevier.
Mirus, BB, JR Nimmo. 2013. Balancing practicality and hydrologic realism: a parsimonious approach for simulating rapid groundwater recharge via unsaturated-zone preferential flow, Water Resources Research, DOI:10.1002/WRCR.20141. [Download File]
Mirus, BB, K Loague. 2013. How Runoff Begins (and Ends): Characterizing hydrologic response at the catchment scale, Water Resources Research, DOI/10.1002/wrcr.20218. [Download File]
Halford, K, CA Garcia, J Fenelon, and BB Mirus. 2012. Advanced methods for modeling water-levels and estimating drawdowns with SeriesSEE, an Excel add-In, U.S. Geological Survey - Techniques and Methods, 4–F4, 28 p. [Link]
Mirus, BB, K Perkins, 2012. Practical estimates of field-saturated hydraulic conductivity of bedrock outcrops using a modified bottomless bucket method, Water Resources Research DOI:10.1029/2012WR012053. [Download File]
Mirus, BB, K Perkins, JR Nimmo. 2011. Assessing Controls on Perched Saturated Zones beneath the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center, Idaho. U.S. Geological Survey – Scientific Investigations Report 2011-5222 (DOE/ID-22216), p. 20. [Link]
Mirus, BB, K Loague, N Cristea, S Burges, S Kampf. 2011. A synthetic hydrologic-response dataset. Hydrological Processes, DOI:10.1002/hyp.8185. [Download File]
Mirus, BB, BA Ebel, CS Heppner, K Loague. 2011. Assessing the detail needed to capture rainfall-runoff dynamics with physics-based hydrologic-response simulation. Water Resources Research 47, W00H10, DOI.1029/2010WR009906. [Download File]
BeVille, SH, BB Mirus, BA Ebel, GG Mader, and K Loague. 2010. Using simulated hydrologic response to revisit the 1973 Lerida Court landslide. Environmental Earth Sciences. DOI:10.1007/s12665-010-0448-z. [Download File]
Ebel, BA, BB Mirus, CS Heppner, JE VanderKwaak, K Loague. 2009. First-order exchange coefficient coupling for simulating surface water-groundwater interactions: Parameter sensitivity and consistency with a physics-based approach. Hydrological Processes 23, 1949-1959. DOI:10.1002/hyp.7279. [Download File]
Mirus, BB, K Loague, JE VanderKwaak, SK Kampf, and SJ Burges. 2009. A hypothetical reality of Tarrawarra-like hydrologic response. Hydrological Processes 23, 1093-1103. DOI:10.1002/hyp.7241. [Download File]
Mirus, BB, K Perkins, JR Nimmo, and K Singha. 2009. Hydrologic characterization of desert soils with varying degrees of pedogenesis: II. Inverse modeling for effective properties. Vadose Zone Journal 8(2), 496-509. DOI:10.2136/vzj.2008.0051. [Download File]
Mirus, BB, BA Ebel, K Loague, and BC Wemple. 2007. Simulated effect of a forest road on near-surface hydrologic response: Redux. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 32, 126-142. DOI:1002/esp.1387. [Download File]
Loague, K, CS Heppner, BB Mirus, BA Ebel, Q Ran, AE Carr, SH BeVille, and JE VanderKwaak. 2006. Physics-based hydrologic-response simulation: Foundation for hydroecology and hydrogeomorphology. Hydrological Processes 20, 1231-1237. DOI:2001/hyp.6179. [Download File]
Mirus, BB, K Moffett, J Fosdick, G Hughes, S Carter (editors). 2005. Stanford Alpine Project: Field Guide to Guatemalan Geology. Branner Earth Sciences Library, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, pp. 60. [Link]
Science and Products
Toro Negro, Puerto Rico
Recent Conditions
Instruments and are used to monitor and detect changes in local conditions, including:
Utuado, Puerto Rico
Recent Conditions
Instruments and are used to monitor and detect changes in local conditions, including:
Landslides Can Cause More Landslides
Release Date: MAY 15, 2018
The deadliest individual landslides in the U.S. recently were in places where there had previously been a landslide. Why do landslides happen in the same place instead of on nearby slopes that appear to be just as likely, if not more likely, to slide?
UZIG research: Measurement and characterization of unsaturated zone processes under wide-ranging climates and changing conditions
Unsaturated zone properties and processes are central to understanding the interacting effects of land-use change, contamination, and hydroclimate on our ability to grow food, sustain clean water supplies, and minimize loss of life and property. Advances in unsaturated zone science are being achieved through collaborations across traditional...
Trost, Jared J.; Mirus, Benjamin B.; Perkins, Kimberlie; Henson, Wesley R.; Nimmo, John R.; Munoz-Carpena, Rafael Developing hydro-meteorological thresholds for shallow landslide initiation and early warning
Consistent relations between shallow landslide initiation and associated rainfall characteristics remain difficult to identify, due largely to the complex hydrological and geological processes causing slopes to be predisposed to failure and those processes that subsequently trigger failures. Considering the importance of hillslope hydrology for...
Mirus, Benjamin B.; Morphew, Michael D.; Smith, Joel B. Identifying physics‐based thresholds for rainfall‐induced landsliding
Most regional landslide warning systems utilize empirically derived rainfall thresholds that are difficult to improve without recalibration to additional landslide events. To address this limitation, we explored the use of synthetic rainfall to generate thousands of possible storm patterns and coupled them with a physics‐based hydrology and slope...
Thomas, Matthew A.; Mirus, Benjamin B.; Collins, Brian D. Integrating real-time subsurface hydrologic monitoring with empirical rainfall thresholds to improve landslide early warning
Early warning for rainfall-induced shallow landsliding can help reduce fatalities and economic losses. Although these commonly occurring landslides are typically triggered by subsurface hydrological processes, most early warning criteria rely exclusively on empirical rainfall thresholds and other indirect proxies for subsurface wetness. We explore...
Mirus, Benjamin B.; Becker, Rachel E.; Baum, Rex L.; Smith, Joel B. Incorporating spatially heterogeneous infiltration capacity into hydrologic models with applications for simulating post‐wildfire debris flow initiation
Soils in post‐wildfire environments are often characterized by a low infiltration capacity with a high degree of spatial heterogeneity relative to unburned areas. Debris flows are frequently initiated by run‐off in recently burned steeplands, making it critical to develop and test methods for incorporating spatial variability in infiltration...
McGuire, Luke A.; Rengers, Francis K.; Kean, Jason W.; Staley, Dennis M.; Mirus, Benjamin B. Variability in soil-water retention properties and implications for physics-based simulation of landslide early warning criteria
Rainfall-induced shallow landsliding is a persistent hazard to human life and property. Despite the observed connection between infiltration through the unsaturated zone and shallow landslide initiation, there is considerable uncertainty in how estimates of unsaturated soil-water retention properties affect slope stability assessment. This source...
Thomas, Matthew A.; Mirus, Benjamin B.; Collins, Brian D.; Lu, Ning; Godt, Jonathan W. Disturbance hydrology: Preparing for an increasingly disturbed future
This special issue is the result of several fruitful conference sessions on disturbance hydrology, which started at the 2013 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco and have continued every year since. The stimulating presentations and discussions surrounding those sessions have focused on understanding both the disruption of hydrologic functioning...
Mirus, Benjamin B.; Ebel, Brian A.; Mohr, Christian H.; Zegre, Nicolas Hydrologic impacts of landslide disturbances: Implications for remobilization and hazard persistence
Landslides typically alter hillslope topography, but may also change the hydrologic connectivity and subsurface water-storage dynamics. In settings where mobile materials are not completely evacuated from steep slopes, influences of landslide disturbances on hillslope hydrology and susceptibility to subsequent failures remain poorly characterized...
Mirus, Benjamin B.; Smith, Joel B.; Baum, Rex L.
Results of hydrologic monitoring on landslide-prone coastal bluffs near Mukilteo, Washington
A hydrologic monitoring network was installed to investigate landslide hazards affecting the railway corridor along the eastern shore of Puget Sound between Seattle and Everett, near Mukilteo, Washington. During the summer of 2015, the U.S. Geological Survey installed monitoring equipment at four sites equipped with instrumentation to measure...
Smith, Joel B.; Baum, Rex L.; Mirus, Benjamin B.; Michel, Abigail R.; Stark, Ben
Precipitation thresholds for landslide occurrence near Seattle, Mukilteo, and Everett, Washington
Shallow landslides along coastal bluffs frequently occur in the railway corridor between Seattle and Everett, Washington. These slides disrupt passenger rail service, both because of required track maintenance and because the railroad owner, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, does not allow passenger travel for 48 hours after a disruptive...
Scheevel, Caroline R.; Baum, Rex L.; Mirus, Benjamin B.; Smith, Joel B. Effect of hydraulic hysteresis on the stability of infinite slopes under steady infiltration
Hydraulic hysteresis, including capillary soil water retention (SWR), air entrapment SWR, and hydraulic conductivity, is a common phenomenon in unsaturated soils. However, the influence of hydraulic hysteresis on suction stress, and subsequently slope stability, is generally ignored. This paper examines the influence of each of these three types...
Chen, Pan; Mirus, Benjamin B.; Lu, Ning; Godt, Jonathan W. Preferential flow, diffuse flow, and perching in an interbedded fractured-rock unsaturated zone
Layers of strong geologic contrast within the unsaturated zone can control recharge and contaminant transport to underlying aquifers. Slow diffuse flow in certain geologic layers, and rapid preferential flow in others, complicates the prediction of vertical and lateral fluxes. A simple model is presented, designed to use limited geological site...
Nimmo, John R.; Creasey, Kaitlyn M; Perkins, Kimberlie; Mirus, Benjamin B.