Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Corina Cerovski-Darriau

Corina leads the USGS-USAID Landslide Disaster Assistance Team (LDAT), which collaborates with international partners on landslide hazard projects. Her expertise is remote and field mapping of surface processes, monitoring hydrologic change and sediment transport, and modeling landslide hazards.

As the USGS-USAID Landslides Hazards Advisor and Landslide Disaster Assistance Team (LDAT) manager, Corina oversees a variety of international educational and technical capacity building projects as part of a joint USGS and USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance program. These projects work closely with in-country counterparts to support landslide mapping and monitoring efforts. Corina’s focus is capacity building to assess landslide hazards and create landslide awareness in order to prepare for future landslide events, and acting as a liaison between USGS and USAID. 

Her past research covered various topics in hillslope geomorphology – from producing geomorphic process maps to identify and quantify sediment erosion sources, to monitoring how long wildfire impacts soil hydraulic conductivity post-fire, to conducting landslide hazard assessment through field and remote mapping, to sampling and dating material properties to understand landscape evolution. Her scientific interest is the interaction of longer-term geomorphic processes on short-term hazards. 

Professional Experience

  • 2023-present Geologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Golden, CO

  • 2017-2022 Research Geologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park/Moffett Field, CA

  • 2016-2017 Mendenhall Post-doctoral Researcher, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA

  • 2010-2016 Research/Teaching Assistant, Univ. of Oregon, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Eugene, OR

  • 2008-2010 Policy Associate, Govt. Affairs Program, AGI, Alexandria, VA

Education and Certifications

  • Ph.D., Geological Sciences, University of Oregon, 2016

  • B.A., Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, 2008

Science and Products

link
Photo of a hillside after a fire

Characterizing high-resolution soil burn severity, erosion risk, and recovery using Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS)

The western United States is experiencing severe wildfires whose observed impacts, including post-wildfire floods and debris flows, appear to be increasing over time.
By
California Water Science Center, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center, National Innovation Center, Western Geographic Science Center, Wildland Fire Science
link

Characterizing high-resolution soil burn severity, erosion risk, and recovery using Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS)

The western United States is experiencing severe wildfires whose observed impacts, including post-wildfire floods and debris flows, appear to be increasing over time.
Learn More

Field observations of landslides and related materials following Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico

During September 2017, Hurricane Maria caused widespread landsliding throughout mountainous regions of Puerto Rico, with more than 71,000 landslides being subsequently identified from aerial imagery (Hughes et al., 2019). Most landslides apparently mobilized as debris flows and occurred within soil (unconsolidated material overlying saprolite and bedrock) and saprolite overlying less-weathered roc
By
Geologic Hazards Science Center

Data from "Mapping bedrock outcrops in the Sierra Nevada Mountains (California, USA) using machine learning"

Accurate, high-resolution maps of bedrock outcrops are extremely valuable. The increasing availability of high-resolution imagery can be coupled with machine learning techniques to improve regional bedrock maps. This data release contains training data created for developing a machine learning model capable of identifying exposed bedrock across the entire Sierra Nevada Mountains (California, USA).
By
Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center

Field-saturated hydraulic conductivity time series and sediment accumulations following the 2017 Nuns and Tubbs wildfires, Napa and Sonoma Counties, CA, USA

This dataset comprises repeat surveys of field-saturated hydraulic conductivity and sorptivity following the October 2017 Nuns and Tubbs wildfires as part of an effort to document soil-hydraulic recovery. A summary table includes associated physiographic properties for each site, including: pre-burn vegetation, lithology, soil burn severity, location, soil texture, and associated van Genuchten par
By
National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center

Map data from landslides triggered by Hurricane Maria in four study areas of Puerto Rico

In September 2017, Hurricane Maria caused widespread landsliding throughout mountainous regions of Puerto Rico. Nearly all landslides mobilized as debris flows (Bessette-Kirton et al., 2019), but herein, we simply use the term "landslides" when describing all types of slope failures that occurred during Hurricane Maria. To examine the extent and physical characteristics of landslides in severely i
By
Landslide Hazards Program
Aeirial view of landslides blocking roads in Utuado, Puerto Rico link
Landslides triggered by Hurricane Maria: Assessment of an extreme event in Puerto Rico

Multi-stage soil-hydraulic recovery and limited ravel accumulations following the 2017 Nuns and Tubbs wildfires in Northern California

Wildfire can impact soil-hydraulic properties by reducing saturated hydraulic conductivity and sorptivity, making recently burned landscapes prone to debris flows and flash floods. The post-fire hazard window can range from years to decades. In Northern California, where wildfire frequency is steadily increasing, the impact and soil-hydraulic recovery from wildfires is unknown. Following the Octob
Authors
Jonathan P. Perkins, Carlos Diaz, Skye C. Corbett, Corina Cerovski-Darriau, Jonathan D. Stock, Jeffrey Paul Prancevic, Lisa Micheli, Jay Jasperse
By
National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center

Sediment budget for watersheds of West Maui, Hawaii

Episodic runoff brings suspended sediment to West Maui’s nearshore waters, turning them from blue to brown. This pollution degrades the ecological, cultural, and recreational value of these iconic nearshore waters. We used mapping, monitoring, and modeling to identify and quantify the watershed sources for fine sediment that pollutes the nearshore each year. These results focus strategies to reduc
Authors
Jonathan D. Stock, Corina Cerovski-Darriau
By
National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center

Mobility characteristics of landslides triggered by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

Mobility is an important element of landslide hazard and risk assessments yet has been seldom studied for shallow landslides and debris flows in tropical environments. In September 2017, Hurricane Maria triggered > 70,000 landslides across Puerto Rico. Using aerial imagery and a lidar digital elevation model (DEM), we mapped and characterized the mobility of debris slides and flows in four differe
Authors
Erin K. Bessette-Kirton, Jeffrey A. Coe, William Schulz, Corina Cerovski-Darriau, Mason Muir Einbund
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Landslide Hazards Program, National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center, Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Recovery Activities, Hurricane Maria, Hurricanes

Where’s the rock: Using convolutional neural networks to improve land cover classification

While machine learning techniques have been increasingly applied to land cover classification problems, these techniques have not focused on separating exposed bare rock from soil covered areas. Therefore, we built a convolutional neural network (CNN) to differentiate exposed bare rock (rock) from soil cover (other). We made a training dataset by mapping exposed rock at eight test sites across the
Authors
Helen Petlyak, Corina Cerovski-Darriau, Vadim Zaliva, Jonathan D. Stock
By
National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center, National Innovation Center

Landslides triggered by Hurricane Maria: Assessment of an extreme event in Puerto Rico

Hurricane Maria hit the island of Puerto Rico on 20 September 2017 and triggered more than 40,000 landslides in at least three-fourths of Puerto Rico’s 78 municipalities. The number of landslides that occurred during this event was two orders of magnitude greater than those reported from previous hurricanes. Landslide source areas were commonly limited to surficial soils but also extended into und

Authors
Erin Bessette-Kirton, Corina Cerovski-Darriau, William Schulz, Jeffrey A. Coe, Jason W. Kean, Jonathan W. Godt, Matthew A. Thomas, K. Stephen Hughes
By
Natural Hazards Mission Area, Landslide Hazards Program, National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, Geologic Hazards Science Center, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Recovery Activities, Hurricane Maria, Hurricanes

Science and Products