Earth & Planetary Sciences Seminar - Dr. Ben Mirus "Quantifying controls on landslide potential, from a single tree to the entire nation"

Abstract: Understanding past landslides is essential for anticipating future hazards, mitigating losses, and saving lives. In response to the 2021National Landslides Preparedness Act, the USGS Landslide Hazards Program published a national strategy for landslide risk reduction. It addresses the Law’s mandate to build capacity for landslide disaster responses and develop national products, but also identifies critical knowledge gaps. At the national scale, we have assembled foundational datasets such as a compilation of landslide inventories and a systematic assessment of landslide damages. Drawing on the national inventory and high-resolution digital elevation data, we produced a national landslide susceptibility map that shows where landslides are more and less likely. We used this model and the underlying data to estimate annual landslide frequencies, quantify landslide seasonality, and explore universal hydrologic metrics for landslide forecasting. However, emergency responses to widespread disasters such as Hurricane Helene and other fatal storm events reveal ongoing challenges with predicting the when, where, and how of future landsliding. Long-term monitoring and detailed site characterization are revealing new avenues for improving landslide models, such as considering the critical zone continuum between the atmosphere, biosphere, and shallow groundwater. This presentation will summarize these recent findings, ranging from an individual tree to the entire nation.

Speaker Bio: Ben Mirus is a Research Geologist with the USGS Geologic Hazards Science Center. He earned a Bachelors in Geology from Pomona College and PhD in Hydrogeology from Stanford. His USGS career started as an intern in Menlo Park, then he served on the faculty at UNC before returning to the USGS in Colorado. Ben received the Presidential Early Career Award in Sciences and Engineering (PECASE) and was a Visiting Fellow at the Swiss Federal Research Institute (WSL). Ben now leads an amazing team of researchers focused on landslide hazards across the U.S.