Global Rainfall-Triggered Landslides and Global Precipitation from IMERG
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- Visualizations by:
- Lori Perkins
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- Scientific consulting by:
- Dalia B Kirschbaum
- View full credits
Landslides occur when an environmental trigger like an extreme rain event, often a severe storm or hurricane, and gravity's downward pull sets soil and rock in motion. Conditions beneath the surface are often unstable already, so the heavy rains act as the last straw that causes mud, rocks, or debris—or all combined—to move rapidly down mountains and hillsides. Unfortunately, people and property are often swept up in these unexpected mass movements. Landslides can also be caused by earthquakes, surface freezing and thawing, ice melt, the collapse of groundwater reservoirs, volcanic eruptions, and erosion at the base of a slope from th flow of river or ocean water. But torrential rains most commonly activate landslides. The NASA Global Landslide Catalog (GLC) was developed with the goal of identifying rainfall-triggered landslide events around the world, regardless of size, impact, or location. The GLC considers all types of mass movements triggered by rainfall, which have been reported in the media, disaster databases, scientific reports, or other sources. THe GLC has been compiled since 2007 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Here the GLC is shown with precipitation data detected by NASA's Integrated Multi-satellite Retrieval for the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) (IMERG).
Landslide inventories are critical to support investigations of where and when landslides have happened and may occur in the future; however, there is surprisingly little information on the historical occurrence of landslides at the global scale. This visualization displays all rainfall-triggered landslides from 2007 through March 2015 from a publically available global rainfall-triggered landslide catalog (GLC). This is a valuable database for characterizing global patterns of landslide occurence and evaluating relationshipswith extreme precipitation at regional and global scales. For more information on the Global Landslide Catalog, please visit: ojo-streamer.herokuapp.com
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
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Data visualizers
- Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC) [Lead]
- Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
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Scientists
- Dalia B Kirschbaum (NASA/GSFC) [Lead]
- George Huffman (NASA/GSFC)
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Data provider
- Thomas A. Stanley (USRA) [Lead]
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Datasets used in this visualization
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IMERG
ID: 863This dataset can be found at: http://pmm.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/document_files/IMERG_ATBD_V4.4.pdf
See all pages that use this dataset -
GLC (Global Landslide Catalogue)
ID: 872
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.
Related Pages
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ID: 4631 Visualization
Global Landslide Hazard Assessment Model (LHASA) with Global Landslide Catalog (GLC) data
Read moreLandslides occur when an environmental trigger like an extreme rain event, often a severe storm or hurricane, and gravity's downward pull sets soil and rock in motion. Conditions beneath the surface are often unstable already, so the heavy rains act as the last straw that causes mud, rocks, or debris- or all combined- to move rapidly down mountains and hillsides. Unfortunately, people and property are often swept up in these unexpected mass movements. Landslides can also be caused by earthquakes, surface freezing and thawing, ice melt, the collapse of groundwater reservoirs, volcanic eruptions, and erosion at the base of a slope from the flow of river or ocean water. But torrential rains most commonly activate landslides. A new model has been developed to look at how potential landslide activity is changing around the world. A global Landslide Hazard Assessment model for Situational Awareness (LHASA) has been developed to provide an indication of where and when landslides may be likely around the world every 30min. This model uses surface susceptibility (including slope, vegetation, road networks, geology, and forest cover loss) and satellite rainfall data from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission to provide moderate to high “nowcasts.” This visualization shows the landslide nowcast results leveraging nearly two decades of Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) rainfall over 2001-2016 to identify a landslide climatology by month at a 1 km grid cell. The average nowcast values by month highlight the key landslide hotspots, such as the Southeast Asia during the monsoon season in June through August and the U.S. Pacific Northwest in December and January. Overlaid with these nowcasts values are a Global Landslide Catalog (GLC) was developed with the goal of identifying rainfall-triggered landslide events around the world, regardless of size, impact, or location. The GLC considers all types of mass movements triggered by rainfall, which have been reported in the media, disaster databases, scientific reports, or other sources. The visualization shows the distribution of landslides each month based on the estimated number of fatalities the event caused. The GLC has been compiled since 2007 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and contains over 11,000 reports and growing. A new project called the Community the Cooperative Open Online Landslide Repository, or COOLR, provides the opportunity for the community to view landslide reports and contribute their own. The goal of the COOLR project is to create the largest global public online landslide catalog available and open to for anyone everyone to share, download, and analyze landslide information. More information on this system is available at: https://landslides.nasa.govThe Global Landslide Catalog is currently available here: https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/global-landslide-catalog-export ||
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ID: 4640 Visualization
Close-up Views of the Global Landslide Hazard Assessment Model (LHASA) overlaid with Global Landslide Catalog (GLC) data
Read moreA close-up view of the potential landslide activity during July in Southeast Asia as evaluated by NASA's Landslide Hazard Assessment model for Situational Awareness. In the Download tab to the right, a set of 12 still images provides high-resolution (9,600x5,400) global maps to allow for close-up views in any location around the world. The images showcase the landslide climatology by month overload with the distribution of reported landslide fatalities for the period 2007-2017. || 07_ClimatologyMonthlyFatalities_032818_Asia_CloseUp_print.jpg (1024x576) [188.1 KB] || 07_ClimatologyMonthlyFatalities_032818_Asia_CloseUp_searchweb.png (320x180) [84.5 KB] || 07_ClimatologyMonthlyFatalities_032818_Asia_CloseUp_thm.png (80x40) [7.7 KB] || 07_ClimatologyMonthlyFatalities_032818_Asia_CloseUp.tif (1920x1080) [7.9 MB] || frames/9600x5400_16x9_30p/MonthlyClimatologyFatalities/ (9600x5400) [4.0 KB] ||
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ID: 12897 Produced Video
New NASA Model Finds Landslide Threats in Near Real-Time During Heavy Rains
Read moreA new model has been developed to look at how potential landslide activity is changing around the world. A global Landslide Hazard Assessment model for Situational Awareness (LHASA) has been developed to provide an indication of where and when landslides may be likely around the world every 30 minutes. This model uses surface susceptibility (including slope, vegetation, road networks, geology, and forest cover loss) and satellite rainfall data from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission to provide moderate to high “nowcasts.” This visualization shows the landslide nowcast results leveraging nearly two decades of Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) rainfall over 2001-2016 to identify a landslide climatology by month at a 1 km grid cell. The average nowcast values by month highlight the key landslide hotspots, such as the Southeast Asia during the monsoon season in June through August and the U.S. Pacific Northwest in December and January. Overlaid with these nowcasts values are a Global Landslide Catalog(GLC) that was developed with the goal of identifying rainfall-triggered landslide events around the world, regardless of size, impact, or location. The GLC considers all types of mass movements triggered by rainfall, which have been reported in the media, disaster databases, scientific reports, or other sources. The visualization shows the distribution of landslides each month based on the estimated number of fatalities the event caused. The GLC has been compiled since 2007 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and contains over 11,000 reports and growing. A new project called the Community the Cooperative Open Online Landslide Repository, or COOLR, provides the opportunity for the community to view landslide reports and contribute their own. The goal of the COOLR project is to create the largest global public online landslide catalog available and open to for anyone everyone to share, download, and analyze landslide information. More information on this system is available at: https://landslides.nasa.gov. Landslides occur when an environmental trigger like an extreme rain event, often a severe storm or hurricane, and gravity's downward pull sets soil and rock in motion. Conditions beneath the surface are often unstable already, so the heavy rains act as the last straw that causes mud, rocks, or debris- or all combined- to move rapidly down mountains and hillsides. Unfortunately, people and property are often swept up in these unexpected mass movements. Landslides can also be caused by earthquakes, surface freezing and thawing, ice melt, the collapse of groundwater reservoirs, volcanic eruptions, and erosion at the base of a slope from the flow of river or ocean water. But torrential rains most commonly activate landslides.For more information: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/new-from-nasa-tracking-landslide-hazards-new-nasa-model-finds-landslide-threats-in-near-real ||
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ID: 4633 Visualization
Landslide Activity in the Americas for the Cover of <i>Earth's Future</i>
Read moreA view of the potential landslide activity during January in the Americas, as evaluated by NASA's Landslide Hazard Assessment model for Situational Awareness (LHASA). This still image is provided in 300dpi (print resolution) and in separate layers (water, data, land, outlines). || ClimatologyJanuary_Cover_Light_Layers_Preview_print.jpg (1024x1024) [125.1 KB] || ClimatologyJanuary_Cover_Light_Layers_Preview.png (2550x2550) [2.5 MB] || ClimatologyJanuary_Cover_Light_Layers_Preview_searchweb.png (320x180) [34.2 KB] || ClimatologyJanuary_Cover_Light_Layers_Preview_thm.png (80x40) [3.4 KB] || ClimatologyJanuary_Cover_Light_Layers_300dpi.tif (2550x2550) [16.4 MB] ||
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ID: 11926 Produced Video
Visualizing Landslides
Read moreScientists map the location of more than 6,500 landslides. || c-1920.jpg (1920x1080) [255.5 KB] || c-1280.jpg (1280x720) [158.2 KB] || c-1024.jpg (1024x576) [107.7 KB] || c-1024_print.jpg (1024x576) [102.7 KB] || c-1024_searchweb.png (320x180) [41.0 KB] || c-1024_thm.png (80x40) [12.1 KB] ||
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