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It is estimated that annually, there are almost half a million significant landslides triggered by heavy rainfall and earthquakes that have devastating impacts on people and the environment.
To better understand how often and where landslides might occur, the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) commissioned Arup to undertake a global landslide hazard assessment. Using landslide susceptibility information provided by NASA, a landslide inventory, and a machine learning model, our geohazard and risk management experts produced a quantitative world-wide landslide hazard map.
Natural hazard resilience
Improving our understanding of the frequency and size of landslides allows us to better plan for and manage their potential impacts. Whilst many in-depth and detailed localised landslide hazard studies have been undertaken for the developed world, many parts of the developing world are without such a resource. By undertaking this study, we provided high-level information which can be used for broad planning or hazard studies anywhere in the world.
Building intelligent data
Undertaking such a complex task meant there was a huge amount of data to analyse. We used a machine learning model to develop statistical relationships between rainfall and landslide occurrence, checking our results against published country or region-specific landslide reports. A separate analysis was undertaken for landslides triggered by earthquakes.
“Arup worked diligently to provide global landslide hazard coverage using innovative analytical processes and succeeded in providing valuable new insights. ” Stuart Fraser GFDRR
Protecting communities
The maps and data produced by this project have been shared using GFDRR’s online hazard screening tool, ThinkHazard! It provides an overview of the natural hazards, for a given location, and is open access so anyone involved in project design and implementation can use the tool as a resource to help promote disaster risk reduction and climate resilience. ThinkHazard! highlights the likelihood of different natural hazards affecting project areas, provides guidance on how to reduce their impact, and outlines where to find more information.
Landslide advisory services
We can provide an estimate of landslide hazard and risk for almost any location in the world. This is offered alongside our site and project-specific landslide hazard and slope stabilisation services.
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