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Stephen L. Slaughter

Stephen leads the Landslide Disaster Assistance Team (LDAT) which was co-founded by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID/BHA).

LDAT strives to support foreign partners on landslide hazards through training, hazards education, and emergency response. LDAT assists foreign partners, upon their request, with technical capacity building on issues they have identified as priorities for disaster risk reduction related to landslide hazards. Our goal is to support and empower foreign partners so they can take the lead in identifying and mitigating landslides hazards in their home countries. Stephen also assists in domestic landslide emergency response, coordinating with first responders and decision-makers to provide geologic hazard situational awareness.

Science and Products

Landslide Inventories across the United States version 2

Landslides are damaging and deadly, and they occur in every U.S. state. However, our current ability to understand landslide hazards at the national scale is limited, in part because spatial data on landslide occurrence across the U.S. varies greatly in quality, accessibility, and extent. Landslide inventories are typically collected and maintained by different agencies and institutions, usually w
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Natural Hazards, Landslide Hazards, Geologic Hazards Science Center
Screengrab of the first slide of the video presentation link
Screengrab of the first slide of the video presentation
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National strategy for landslide loss reduction

Executive SummaryLandslide hazards are present in all 50 States and most U.S. territories, and they affect lives, property, infrastructure, and the environment. Landslides are the downslope move­ment of earth materials under the force of gravity. They can occur without any obvious trigger. Widespread or severe land­slide events are often driven by such hazards as hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic
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Natural Hazards

Landslides triggered by the August 14, 2021, magnitude 7.2 Nippes, Haiti, earthquake

The August 14, 2021, magnitude 7.2 Nippes, Haiti, earthquake triggered thousands of landslides on the Tiburon Peninsula. The landslides directly caused fatalities and damage and impeded response efforts by blocking roads and causing other infrastructure damage. Adverse effects of the landslides likely will continue for months to years. This report presents an assessment of potential postearthquake
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Natural Hazards, Earthquake Hazards, Landslide Hazards, Geologic Hazards Science Center, International Programs

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 risks posed by additional large-scale slope collaps
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Natural Hazards, Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program, Landslide Hazards, National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, Volcano Hazards, Geologic Hazards Science Center, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, Volcano Science Center

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 across the United States (USA) has not been compiled
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Natural Hazards, Landslide Hazards, Geologic Hazards Science Center

Building a landslide hazard indicator with machine learning and land surface models

The U.S. Pacific Northwest has a history of frequent and occasionally deadly landslides caused by various factors. Using a multivariate, machine-learning approach, we combined a Pacific Northwest Landslide Inventory with a 36-year gridded hydrologic dataset from the National Climate Assessment – Land Data Assimilation System to produce a landslide hazard indicator (LHI) on a daily 0.125-degree gri
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Water Resources, Oregon Water Science Center
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National Preparedness Month 2020: Landslides and Sinkholes

Natural hazards have the potential to impact a majority of Americans every year. USGS science provides part of the foundation for emergency...

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Science and Products