A landslide is a movement of rock, debris, or earth down a slope. Landslides are serious geological hazards and can result from other hazards such as volcanic eruptions, wildfires, tsunamis, and earthquakes. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) between 1998 and 2017, landslides caused more than 18,000 deaths worldwide. The impact of landslides can be detrimental causing loss of life, property damage, and loss of natural resources, thus knowing where they previously occurred can help mitigate damage. Additionally, once we know their distribution we can begin to understand what controls where they occur.
The proposed project will identify the locations and parameters of landslides in Iceland by creating the first comprehensive landslide database of Iceland. We are collaborating with the Icelandic Meteorological Office, specifically Dr. Tómas Jóhannesson and Dr. Jón Kristinn Helgason, in a joint effort to complete the project. Today with more and more remote sensing data available creating landslide databases is easier and easier. The focus will be on Iceland because Iceland has few trees making it easy to identify the landslides, and the rock type is almost completely basaltic (with some rhyolite) which removes one of the most difficult variables for understanding landslide occurrence, namely, variability in rock type. Iceland was completely covered by ice during the last age and glaciers helped form the steep fjord topography near the coasts.