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15 July 2009
June 2009 fatal landslide map
A little late, but here is the map of fatal landslides for June 2009. Regular readers will note a change in the quality of the map (for the better I hope). My achievement of the week is to teach myself GIS from scratch, so that now I can plot the data on decent quality maps. So here it is, plotted on the SRTM digital terrain model (Click on the map …
22 June 2009
Fatal landslides in 2009 so far – a review on the solstice
The summer solstice today seems like a good time to take stock of the position with fatal landslides to date, as collected in the Durham Fatal Landslide Database. Globally the fatal landslide season really starts in early June, the point at which the Asian monsoon starts to generate substantial amounts of rainfall in South and East Asia. Of course the greatest proportion of landslides occur in July and August, so …
15 November 2008
October 2008 fatal landslide map
Rather later than is ideal (for which I apologise), here are the maps for fatal landslides in October 2008. First, the statistics:Number of recorded fatal landslides: 22Number of recorded fatalities: 179The average for the period 2002-2007 inclusive was 398 fatalities, excluding the impact of the Kashmir earthquake in 2005, so 2008 is considerably below the long term average. This is the map of the fatal landslides that I recorded (click …
1 October 2008
September 2008 fatal landslide map
For the first time in recorded history the monthly fatal landslide map is actually on time! Below is the map for September 2008. First the statistics:Number of recorded fatal landslides: 59Number of recorded fatalities: 1290 September has been a quite bizarre month, with fatal landslides occurring at a level that is much higher than expected. As such this continues the trend for August, which was also above average, but it …
17 September 2008
August 2008 fatal landslide map
Better late than never (just a tad busy at the moment…), here is the fatal landslide map for August 2008. First the statistics:Number of recorded fatal landslides: 61Number of recorded fatalities: 537 As such August was substantially above the average for the last five years (212 fatalities). This is interesting as regular readers will know that until the end of July most months have been substantially below the five year …
27 August 2008
The influence of the summer monsoon on fatal landslides in Asia
I am currently putting together a keynote paper for the forthcoming International Conference on Slopes, which is being held in Malaysia in November. I have been looking at the occurrence of fatal landslides in Asia, using the Durham Landslide Database as the source of data. I have plotted the number of fatal landslides by month for 2002-2007 for three areas – South Asia (i.e. the Indian subcontinent), East Asia (which …
12 August 2008
July 2008 fatal landslide map
The map below shows the provisional distribution of fatal landslides for June 2008. The (again provisional) statistics are:Number of fatal landslides: 55Number of fatalities: 2127 Once again, the number of recorded fatalities this month has been substantially below the average for 2002-2007, which is 504 deaths. This is consistent with the monthly totals for the whole of the year – indeed at the moment 2008 has the lowest number of …
11 June 2008
Deaths and research in landslides
Now that the Tangjiashan crisis is over, it is clearly time to move on to other things. I will posta retrospective on that event when the dust has settled. For now I think we should allow the Chinese to bask in the success of their achievement. To change the topic, I thought it would be interesting to post an analysis that I did a couple of years ago. The analysis …
11 May 2008
Landslide sizes (numbers killed) around the world
One of the interesting aspects of our landslide fatality database is that it is possible to produce maps of the size of the impact of landslides (which in this case means the numbers of people killed) in each event around the world. I tried to do that for my EGU presentation, but my colleague Nick Rosser has produced a rather more attractive version (Fig. 1) showing the 2007 dataset. Fig …
4 May 2008
The Taihape Landslide monitoring project
Last summer I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days with my friends from GNS Science who are undertaking a monitoring project on the Taihape landslide in New Zealand (see Google Earth image right). Taihape, which is located as -39.68°, 175.80°, is described on Wikipedia as “a small, picturesque town near the middle of the North Island . It services a large rural community and lies on the …
Dave Petley is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull in the United Kingdom. His blog provides commentary and analysis of landslide events occurring worldwide, including the landslides themselves, latest research, and conferences and meetings.
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