Rex Baum
Rex works as a research geologist in the Landslide Hazards Program of the U.S. Geological Survey. He is currently the chief of the Landslide Initiation Processes and Probability Project.
Biography
While at the USGS Rex has conducted research on landslide processes, monitoring, forecasting and warning, and hazards in the Colorado Plateau, Colorado Front Range, southern Rocky Mountains, southwest Ohio, central California, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, Puerto Rico, Poland, and El Salvador, Central America.
Science and Products
Sitka, AK
On August 18, 2015, heavy rainfall triggered around 60 landslides in and around the city of Sitka, AK. The landslides moved downslope rapidly; several were damaging and one of these demolished a home on South Kramer Avenue killing three people.
Preliminary Landslide Susceptibility Maps and Data for Hawaii
Landslide Susceptibility Data and Maps provide tools for hazard assessment prior to an event that may cause landslides.
Seattle Area, Washington
Monitoring at this site is for researching rainfall thresholds for forecasting landslide potential. Shallow landslides are common on coastal bluffs overlooking Puget Sound.
Portland, Oregon
Landslides in the West Hills of Portland pose a hazard to people and property.
Millicoma Meander, Elliott State Forest, Oregon
The USGS and its cooperators have installed instruments in a steep, recently clear-cut basin in the Elliott State Forest.
Knife Ridge, Elliott State Forest, Oregon
The USGS and its cooperators have installed instruments in a steep hillside about 20 km southeast of Reedsport in the Elliott State Forest.
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?
Integrating Disparate Spatial Datasets from Local to National Scale for Open-Access Web-Based Visualization and Analysis: A Case Study Compiling U.S. Landslide Inventories
Spatial data on landslide occurrence across the U.S. varies greatly in quality, accessibility, and extent. This problem of data variability is common across USGS Mission Areas; it presents an obstacle to developing national-scale products and to identifying areas with relatively good/bad data coverage. We compiled available data of known landslides into a national-scale, searchable online map...
Reconstruction of an Avalanche: The West Salt Creek Rock Avalanche
Release Date: MAY 25, 2016
The West Salt Creek Rock Avalanche, Colorado, May 25, 2014
Map Showing Recent and Historic Landslide Activity on Coastal Bluffs of Puget Sound Between Shilshole Bay and Everett, Washington
By Rex L. Baum, Edwin L. Harp, and William A. Hultman
Map and Description of the Active Part of the Slumgullion Landslide, Hinsdale County, Colorado
By Robert W. Fleming and Rex L. Baum, U.S. Geological Survey, and Marco Giardino, Consiglio Nazionale Delle Ricerche, Italy
Map and model input and output data for the north Charlotte Creek Basin, Douglas County, Oregon, for analysis of debris-flow initiation resulting from the storm of November 17 - 19, 1996
Heavy rainfall during mid-November 1996 induced debris flows throughout the southern Oregon Coast Range, including more than 150 in the immediate vicinity of north Charlotte Creek (Coe and others, 2011). Data in this project pertain to a 2.4-km2 area centered at N 43.65° and W 123.94° which an area where high concentrations of debris flows occurred. These data include a subset
Map and model input and output data covering N 40.0° – 40.375° and W 105.25° – 105.625° in the northern Colorado Front Range for analysis of debris flow initiation resulting from the storm of September 9 – 13, 2013
Rainfall on 9–13 September 2013 triggered at least 1,138 debris flows in a 3430 km 2 area of the Colorado Front Range. Most flows were triggered in response to two intense rainfall periods, one 12.5-hour-long period on 11–12 September, and one 8-hour-long period on 12 September. Data in this project pertain to an area bounded by N 40.0° – 40.375° and W 105.
HydroMet: A new code for automated objective optimization of hydrometeorological thresholds for landslide initiation
Landslide detection and warning systems are important tools for mitigation of potential hazards in landslide prone areas. Traditionally, warning systems for shallow landslides have been informed by rainfall intensity-duration thresholds. More recent advances have introduced the concept of hydrometeorological thresholds that are informed not only...
Conrad, Jacob Lawrence; Morphew, Michael D.; Baum, Rex L.; Mirus, Benjamin B. When hazard avoidance is not an option: Lessons learned from monitoring the postdisaster Oso landslide, USA
On 22 March 2014, a massive, catastrophic landslide occurred near Oso, Washington, USA, sweeping more than 1 km across the adjacent valley flats and killing 43 people. For the following 5 weeks, hundreds of workers engaged in an exhaustive search, rescue, and recovery effort directly in the landslide runout path. These workers could not avoid the...
Reid, Mark E.; Godt, Jonathan W.; LaHusen, Richard G; Slaughter, Stephen L; Badger, Thomas C.; Collins, Brian D.; Schulz, William; Baum, Rex L.; Coe, Jeffrey A.; Harp, Edwin L; Schmidt, Kevin; Iverson, Richard M.; Smith, Joel B.; Haugerud, Ralph; George, David L. Incorporating the effects of complex soil layering and thickness local variability into distributed landslide susceptibility assessments
Incorporating the influence of soil layering and local variability into the parameterizations of physics-based numerical models for distributed landslide susceptibility assessments remains a challenge. Typical applications employ substantial simplifications including homogeneous soil units and soil-hydraulic properties assigned based only on...
Fusco, F.; Mirus, Benjamin B.; Baum, Rex L.; Calcaterra, D.; De Vita, P. Rapid sensitivity analysis for reducing uncertainty in landslide hazard assessments
One of the challenges in assessing temporal and spatial aspects of landslide hazard using process-based models is estimating model input parameters, especially in areas where limited measurements of soil and rock properties are available. In an effort to simplify and streamline parameter estimation, development of a simple, rapid approach to...
Baum, Rex L. Progress and lessons learned from responses to landslide disasters
Landslides have the incredible power to transform landscapes and also, tragically, to cause disastrous societal impacts. Whereas the mechanics and effects of many landslide disasters have been analyzed in detail, the means by which landslide experts respond to these events has garnered much less attention. Herein, we evaluate nine landslide...
Collins, Brian D.; Reid, Mark E.; Coe, Jeffrey A.; Kean, Jason W.; Baum, Rex L.; Jibson, Randall W.; Godt, Jonathan W.; Slaughter, Stephen; Stock, Greg M. Landslides across the United States: Occurrence, susceptibility, and data limitations
Detailed information about landslide occurrence is the foundation for advancing process understanding, susceptibility mapping, and risk reduction. Despite the recent revolution in digital elevation data and remote sensing technologies, landslide mapping remains resource intensive. Consequently, a modern, comprehensive map of landslide occurrence...
Mirus, Benjamin B.; Jones, Eric S.; Baum, Rex L.; Godt, Jonathan W.; Slaughter, Stephen Lee; Crawford, Matthew; Lancaster, Jeremy T.; Stanley, Thomas; Kirschbaum, Dalia; Burns, William J.; Schmitt, Robert G.; Lindsey, Kassandra O; McCoy, Kevin Physically based estimation of rainfall thresholds triggering shallow landslides in volcanic slopes of southern Italy
On the 4th and 5th of March 2005, about 100 rainfall-induced landslides occurred along volcanic slopes of Camaldoli Hill in Naples, Italy. These started as soil slips in the upper substratum of incoherent and welded volcaniclastic deposits, then evolved downslope according to debris avalanche and debris flow mechanisms. This specific case of slope...
Fusco, F.; De Vita, P.; Mirus, Benjamin B.; Baum, Rex L.; Allocca, V.; Tufano, R.; Calcaterra, D. Constraining parameter uncertainty in modeling debris-flow initiation during the September 2013 Colorado Front Range storm
The occurrence of debris flows during the September 2013 northern Colorado floods took the emergency management community by surprise. The September 2013 debris flows in the Colorado Front Range initiated from shallow landslides in colluvium. Most occurred on south- and east-facing slopes on the walls of steep canyons in crystalline rocks and on...
Baum, Rex L.; Scheevel, C.R.; Jones, Eric S. Bayesian analysis of the impact of rainfall data product on simulated slope failure for North Carolina locations
In the past decades, many different approaches have been developed in the literature to quantify the load-carrying capacity and geotechnical stability (or the Factor of Safety, F_s) of variably saturated hillslopes. Much of this work has focused on a deterministic characterization of hillslope stability. Yet, simulated F_s values are subject to...
Yatheendradas, Soni; Kirschbaum, Dalia; Nearing, Grey; Vrugt, Jasper A.; Baum, Rex L.; Wooten, Rick; Lu, Ning; Godt, Jonathan W. Field and laboratory hydraulic characterization of landslide-prone soils in the Oregon Coast Range and implications for hydrologic simulation
Unsaturated zone flow processes are an important focus of landslide hazard estimation. Differences in soil hydraulic behavior between wetting and drying conditions (i.e., hydraulic hysteresis) may be important in landslide triggering. Hydraulic hysteresis can complicate soil hydraulic parameter estimates and impact prediction capability. This...
Ebel, Brian A.; Godt, Jonathan W.; Lu, Ning; Coe, Jeffrey A.; Smith, Joel B.; Baum, Rex L. 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.
THRESH—Software for tracking rainfall thresholds for landslide and debris-flow occurrence, user manual
Precipitation thresholds are used in many areas to provide early warning of precipitation-induced landslides and debris flows, and the software distribution THRESH is designed for automated tracking of precipitation, including precipitation forecasts, relative to thresholds for landslide occurrence. This software is also useful for analyzing...
Baum, Rex L.; Fischer, Sarah J.; Vigil, Jacob C.
