Research Questions

Motivating question: How will landsliding be impacted by climate change?

We know climate change is predicted to cause changes to precipitation and temperature. Precipitation may have changes in peak monsoon or atmospheric river events in the fall and changes to snowmelt flows in the summer. Increased temperatures may lead to increased forest fire.

Is there a seasonal shift in the date of maximum saturation? Does peak saturation continue to increase through the end of the century?

We can measure this by counting peak saturation events that occur in the fall (Oct-Nov-Dec) and spring snow melt (Jun-July-Aug) in historic compared to future models, and compare trends for 40 yrs historic 1970-2010 vs 40 year 2040-2080

Is landslide probability likely to increase due to changes in recharge considering changes in extreme soil saturation? What is the uncertainty of future changes?

Using Landlab landslide probability component populated with the statistical distribution from historic and future recharge, we can model the probability of failure change between historic and an ensemble of future scenarios. Uncertainty range is provided by a range of three GCMs and two scenarios by aggregating spatial distribution by sub-watershed, elevation, and vegetation.

How can we characterize landslide probability in the case of fire induced land cover changes given the resulting changes root cohesion?

Run the model focused on the Goodell watershed near the dam, power line, road and infrastructure with spatial distribution of observed fire.