The evolution of post-wildfire landslide susceptibility in the western United States
Abstract
The environmental impacts of global climate change often manifest as natural hazards that transpire over diverse spatiotemporal scales. Wildfires are one such ephemeral hazard that pose an immediate and catastrophic threat to human lives and infrastructure. Wildfires also affect the landscape over longer time scales because they destroy vegetation and alter soil properties that stabilize hillslopes; thus, creating a secondary, prolonged natural hazard of increased landslide susceptibility. Understanding the cumulative effect of wildfires is critical for natural hazard predictions and mitigation strategies. Here, we present results from a comprehensive study of post-wildfire landslide susceptibility evolution from combined debris flow initiation and shallow landslide models to evaluate the amalgamated effects. We integrate remote sensing data with in situ measurements to assess how changes in vegetative cohesion and infiltration capacities affect landslide susceptibility over several years. Our focus here is on recently burned sites in California and Colorado, but our effort is part of a larger, interdisciplinary project to evaluate the impacts of climate change on cascading natural hazards.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021AGUFMNH15F0515C