William Schulz
Biography
I have worked as a research geologist in the Landslide Hazards Program of the U.S. Geological Survey since 2002. Prior to that, I worked in the private sector in California and Wisconsin, mostly investigating landslides and seismogenic ground displacement. My research primarily focuses on understanding conditions that result in the diverse characteristics of landslide motion, although I am also very interested in understanding controls of the onset of landslide movement and reactivation. My work includes characterizing and monitoring landslides in the field, laboratory testing, mathematical modeling, and assessing landslide hazards.
Education:
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, B.S., 1994, Geology
Purdue University, M.S., 1996, Engineering Geology
Kyoto University, Ph.D., 2020, Geophysics
Science and Products
Susceptibility to Landslides Triggered by Intense Rainfall, Puerto Rico
Map Depicting Susceptibility to Landslides Triggered by Intense Rainfall, Puerto Rico
by K. Stephen Hughes and William H. Schulz
Puerto Rico is vulnerable to landsliding. This report summarizes creation of a new high-resolution model of rainfall-induced landslide susceptibility for the main island.
Slow-Motion Landslides
Release Date: JUNE 11, 2018
Sluggishly-moving earthflows can help us learn what controls the starting and stopping of landslides.
Geologic controls of slow-moving landslides near the U.S. West Coast
Slow-moving landslides, often with nearly imperceptible creeping motion, are an important landscape shaper and a dangerous natural hazard across the globe, yet their spatial distribution and geologic controls are still poorly known owing to a paucity of detailed, large-area observations. Here, we use interferometry of L-band satellite radar images...
Xu, Yuankun; Schulz, William; Lu, Zhong; Kim, Jinwook; Baxstrom, Kelli Wadsworth 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. Twelve-year dynamics and rainfall thresholds for alternating creep and rapid movement of the Hooskanaden landslide from integrating InSAR, pixel offset tracking, and borehole and hydrological measurements
The Hooskanaden landslide is a large (~600 m wide × 1,300 m long), deep (~30 – 45 m) slide located in southwestern Oregon. Since 1958, it has had five moderate/major movements that catastrophically damaged the intersecting U.S. Highway 101, along with persistent slow wet‐season movements and a long‐term accelerating trend...
Xu, Y.; Lu, Z.; Schulz, William; Kim, J. 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...
Bessette-Kirton, Erin K.; Coe, Jeffrey A.; Schulz, William; Cerovski-Darriau, Corina; Einbund, Mason Muir Four-dimensional surface motions of the Slumgullion landslide and quantification of hydrometeorological forcing
Landslides modify the natural landscape and cause fatalities and property damage worldwide. Quantifying landslide dynamics is challenging due to the stochastic nature of the environment. With its large area of ~1 km2 and perennial motions at ~10–20 mm per day, the Slumgullion landslide in Colorado, USA, represents an ideal natural laboratory...
Hu, Xie; Bürgmann, Roland; Schulz, William; Fielding, Eric J.
Map depicting susceptibility to landslides triggered by intense rainfall, Puerto Rico
Landslides in Puerto Rico range from nuisances to deadly events. Centuries of agricultural and urban modification of the landscape have perturbed many already unstable hillsides on the tropical island. One of the main triggers of mass wasting on the island is the high-intensity rainfall that is associated with tropical atmospheric systems. Puerto...
Hughes, K. Stephen; Schulz, William Using a dense seismic array to determine structure and site effects of the Two Towers earthflow in northern California
We deployed a network of 68 three-component geophones on the slow moving Two Towers earthflow in northern California. We compute horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios (HVSRs) from the ambient seismic field. The HVSRs have two prominent peaks, one near 1.23 Hz and another between 4 and 8 Hz at most stations. The 1.23 Hz resonance is a property...
Thomas, Amanda M.; Spica, Zack; Bodmer, Miles; Schulz, William; Roering, Joshua J. Widespread initiation, reactivation, and acceleration of landslides in the northern California Coast Ranges due to extreme rainfall
Episodically to continuously active slow-moving landslides are driven by precipitation. Climate change, which is altering both the frequency and magnitude of precipitation world21 wide, is therefore predicted to have a major impact on landslides. Here we examine the behavior of hundreds of slow-moving landslides in northern California in...
Handwerger, Alexander L.; Fielding, Eric J.; Huang, Mong-Han; Bennett, Georgina L.; Liang, Cunren; Schulz, William 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...
Bessette-Kirton, Erin; Cerovski-Darriau, Corina; Schulz, William; Coe, Jeffrey A.; Kean, Jason W.; Godt, Jonathan W.; Thomas, Matthew A.; Hughes, K. Stephen Clayey landslide initiation and acceleration strongly modulated by soil swelling
Largely unknown mechanisms restrain motion of clay-rich, slow-moving landslides that are widespread worldwide and rarely accelerate catastrophically. We studied a clayey, slow-moving landslide typical of thousands in northern California, USA, to decipher hydrologic-mechanical interactions that modulate landslide dynamics. Similar to some other...
Schulz, William; Smith, Joel B.; Wang, Gonghui; Jiang, Yao; Roering, Joshua J. Landslide kinematics and their potential controls from hourly to decadal timescales: Insights from integrating ground-based InSAR measurements with structural maps and long-term monitoring data
Knowledge of kinematics is rudimentary for understanding landslide controls and is increasingly valuable with greater spatiotemporal coverage. However, characterizing landslide-wide kinematics is rare, especially at broadly ranging timescales. We used highly detailed kinematic data obtained using photogrammetry and field mapping during the 1980s...
Schulz, William; Coe, Jeffrey A.; Ricci, P.P; Smoczyk, Gregory M.; Shurtleff, Brett L; Panosky, J Three-dimensional surface deformation derived from airborne interferometric UAVSAR: Application to the Slumgullion Landslide
In order to provide surface geodetic measurements with “landslide-wide” spatial coverage, we develop and validate a method for the characterization of 3-D surface deformation using the unique capabilities of the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) airborne repeat-pass radar interferometry system. We apply our method at the...
Delbridge, Brent G.; Burgmann, Roland; Fielding, Eric; Hensley, Scott; Schulz, William