Premium
Rapidly Evolving Controls of Landslides After a Strong Earthquake and Implications for Hazard Assessments
Author(s) -
Fan Xuanmei,
Yunus Ali P.,
Scaringi Gianvito,
Catani Filippo,
Siva Subramanian Srikrishnan,
Xu Qiang,
Huang Runqui
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2020gl090509
Subject(s) - landslide , geology , hazard , seismology , seismic hazard , natural hazard , aftershock , hazard analysis , physical geography , geography , oceanography , chemistry , organic chemistry , aerospace engineering , engineering
Strong earthquakes, especially on mountain slopes, can generate large amounts of unconsolidated deposits, prone to remobilization by aftershocks and rainstorms. Assessing the hazard they pose and what drives their movement in the years following the mainshock has not yet been attempted, primarily because multitemporal landslide inventories are lacking. By exploiting a multitemporal inventory (2005–2018) covering the epicentral region of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake and a set of conditioning factors (seismic, topographic, and hydrological), we perform statistical tests to understand the temporal evolution of these factors affecting debris remobilizations. Our analyses, supported by a random‐forest susceptibility assessment model, reveal a prediction capability of seismic‐related variables declining with time, as opposed to hydro‐topographic parameters gaining importance and becoming predominant within a decade. These results may have important implications on the way conventional susceptibility/hazard assessment models should be employed in areas where coseismic landslides are the main sediment production mechanism on slopes.