Landslide EVO: Monitoring landslides in remote western Nepal by leveraging technological advances and citizen science
Abstract
We describe and present initial results from the Landslide EVO project, a four-year effort to improve process understanding and build community-level resilience against landslides in a remote mountainous region of western Nepal. Our campaign combines more traditional geophysical surveys (e.g. dGPS, PS-InSAR, geoelectrics) and hazard mapping (integrating multiple remotely sensed datasets like topography, land use, soil moisture) with dendrochronological analyses. This has allowed us to construct a detailed history of recent landslide occurrence, as well as the present disposition of subsurface features at our two study sites. Leveraging recent advances in wireless data transmission and low-cost sensor technology, we also exploit data from a dense network of rain gauges and self-built lidar river level sensors. These data (i) inform local community early-warning systems; (ii) are used, together with a landslide GIS database, to calculate rainfall intensity-duration thresholds for landslide initiation; and (iii) calibrate satellite precipitation products (e.g. GPM IMERG) as a first step towards the provision of meteorological 'nowcasting'. Finally, we demonstrate that, through participatory monitoring, community-level training (citizen science) and capacity assessments, the generated knowledge can become locally meaningful and actionable.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.H14A..08P
- Keywords:
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- 1810 Debris flow and landslides;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1835 Hydrogeophysics;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 4315 Monitoring;
- forecasting;
- prediction;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4341 Early warning systems;
- NATURAL HAZARDS