Landslides News

February 24, 2025

Top Headlines

Earth Scientists Study Sikkim Flood in India to Help Others Prepare for Similar Disasters

Jan. 30, 2025 — Experts from the global Earth science community have pieced together what happened during the massive Sikkim flood to try to help others prepare for similar ...

How We Classify Flood Risk May Give Developers, Home Buyers a False Sense of Security

Jan. 6, 2025 — Traditional methods of communicating how likely an area is to flood focus on designating which zones are 'high risk.' This study suggests that this framing may give developers and homeowners a false ...

What Triggered Nepal's Catastrophic 2021 Flood -- And Could It Happen Again?

Dec. 4, 2024 — Heavy monsoon rainfall, excessive snowmelt and unstable terrain combined to cause the 2021 Melamchi Valley flood disaster in Nepal, according to new research. The findings highlight how a mix of ...

Mangroves Save $855 Billion in Flood Protection Globally, New Study Shows

Dec. 5, 2024 — Mangroves have been shown to provide $855 billion in flood protection services worldwide, according to a new ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:21pm EST

Climate-Driven Hazards Increases Risk for Millions of Coastal Residents, Study Finds

Nov. 21, 2024 — A new study estimates that a 1-meter sea level rise by 2100 would affect over 14 million people and $1 trillion worth of property along the Southeast ...

How Flood Risk Affects Home Values

Nov. 19, 2024 — Houses for sale in a flood zone are around 10% cheaper than surrounding areas, according to new research. However, the reduced price tag is not worth the extra risk and can burden buyers with ...

Sliding Seeds Can Provide Insight Into Devastating Landslides and Rock Avalanches

Nov. 19, 2024 — Researchers study how Champatis roll and bounce down inclines. The authors released a heap of the seeds down an inclined plane while a camera ...

American Soil Losing More Nutrients for Crops Due to Heavier Rainstorms

Nov. 18, 2024 — Phosphorus, a nutrient in soil essential for sustaining most forms of life, is increasingly disappearing from land as it is washed into waterways throughout the United States, according to a new ...

Understanding Landslides: A New Model for Predicting Motion

Oct. 17, 2024 — Along coastal California, the possibility of earthquakes and landslides are commonly prefaced by the phrase, 'not if, but when.' This precarious reality is now a bit more predictable thanks to ...

Slow-Moving Landslides a Growing, but Ignored, Threat to Mountain Communities

Sep. 17, 2024 — As urban centers in mountainous regions grow, more people are driven to build on steeper slopes prone to slow-moving landslides, a new study finds. ...

Over Two-Million Acres of Floodplain Development Occurred in U.S. in Last Two Decades, Study Finds

Sep. 13, 2024 — A nationwide analysis of community-level floodplain development found that over two-million acres of floodplain were developed over the past two ...

Dams Built to Prevent Coastal Flooding Can Worsen It

Sep. 13, 2024 — The common practice of building dams to prevent flooding can actually contribute to more intense coastal flood events, according to a new study. By analyzing data and measurements from Charleston ...

New Map Shows Where Landslides Are Most Likely to Occur in U.S.

Sep. 11, 2024 — Landslides are a common hazard in the US. In fact, nearly 44% of the country could experience one, potentially catastrophically. Our new national landslide susceptibility map shows where they're most ...

Deserts' Biggest Threat? Flooding

Sep. 9, 2024 — A new study has found that the increase in soil erosion in coastal areas due to desertification is worsening flood impacts on Middle Eastern and North African port cities. The researchers focused ...

Traditional Infrastructure Design Often Makes Extreme Flooding Events Worse

Sep. 4, 2024 — Much of the nation's stormwater infrastructure, designed decades to a century ago to prevent floods, can exacerbate flooding during the severe weather events that are increasing around the ...

New Study Reveals Devastating Power and Colossal Extent of a Giant Underwater Avalanche Off the Moroccan Coast

Aug. 21, 2024 — New research has revealed how an underwater avalanche grew more than 100 times in size causing a massive trail of destruction as it traveled 2000km across the Atlantic Ocean seafloor off the North ...

Urban Street Networks, Building Density Shape Severity of Floods

Aug. 19, 2024 — The design of streets and layout of buildings have an impact on a city's resilience in the face of increasingly severe floods brought on by climate change. Researchers look at buildings and ...

Sichuan Province Earthquake Offers Lessons for Landslide Prediction from GNSS Observations

Aug. 7, 2024 — Using data collected from a 2022 magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Luding County in China's Sichuan Province, researchers tested whether Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observations could be ...

2023 Rolling Hills Estates Landslide Likely Began the Winter Before

July 12, 2024 — Landslides triggered by intense rainfall can sometimes be predicted along with incoming storms, but dry-season landslides often take people by surprise. The July 2023 Rolling Hills Estates landslide ...

Subduction Zone Splay Faults Compound Hazards of Great Earthquakes

May 20, 2024 — Groundbreaking research has provided new insight into the tectonic plate shifts that create some of the Earth's largest earthquakes and ...

Lake Tsunamis Pose Significant Threat Under Warming Climate

May 6, 2024 — The names might not be familiar -- Cowee Creek, Brabazon Range, Upper Pederson Lagoon -- but they mark the sites of recent lake tsunamis, a phenomenon that is increasingly common in Alaska, British ...

Researchers Introduce New Way to Study, Help Prevent Landslides

Apr. 26, 2024 — Landslides are one of the most destructive natural disasters on the planet, causing billions of dollars of damage and devastating loss of life every year. A global team of researchers has provided ...

Land Under Water: What Causes Extreme Flooding?

Mar. 27, 2024 — If rivers overflow their banks, the consequences can be devastating -- just like the catastrophic floods in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate of 2021 showed. In order to limit flood ...

Surprising Insights About Debris Flows on Mars

Mar. 14, 2024 — The period that liquid water was present on the surface of Mars may have been shorter than previously thought. Channel landforms called gullies, previously thought to be formed exclusively by liquid ...

Stronger Storms Free More Nutrients from Mud Flats

Feb. 22, 2024 — If storms become stronger in the future due to climate change, more nitrogen may be released from the bottom of coastal ...

New Detection Method Aims to Warn of Landslide Tsunamis

Feb. 21, 2024 — Researchers have devised a way to remotely detect large landslides within minutes of occurrence and to quickly determine whether they are close to open water and present a tsunami ...

Clearing Mangroves Makes 'Muddification' Worse

Nov. 15, 2023 — Clearing mangroves to stop estuaries getting clogged with mud actually makes the problem worse, new research ...

New Dates for Landslides Reveal Past Seattle Fault Earthquakes

Nov. 7, 2023 — New maps of more than 1,000 deep-seated landslides in the Puget Lowlands of Washington State provide evidence of the last major earthquake along the Seattle Fault about 1,100 years ago -- and may ...

100-Year Floods Could Occur Yearly by End of 21st Century

Sep. 13, 2023 — Most coastal communities will encounter '100-year floods' annually by the end of the century, even under a moderate scenario where carbon dioxide emissions peak by 2040, according to a new ...

Climate Protection: Land Use Changes Cause the Carbon Sink to Decline

Aug. 10, 2023 — Terrestrial carbon sinks can mitigate the greenhouse effect. Researchers pooled various data sources and found that European carbon storage takes place mainly in surface biomass in East Europe. ...

Nitrogen Runoff Strategies Complicated by Climate Change

Aug. 8, 2023 — As climate change progresses, rising temperatures may impact nitrogen runoff from land to lakes and streams more than projected increases in total and extreme precipitation for most of the ...

Saltwater or Freshwater? Difference Is Large for the Climate When We Flood Low Lying Areas

July 18, 2023 — Researchers find large methane emissions: 'Do not flood low-lying areas with freshwater'. Their studies find that freshwater lakes emit much more methane than saltwater lagoons, bogs and ...

What Causes Mudslides and Floods After Wildfires? Hint: It's Not What Scientists Thought

July 17, 2023 — Scientists once assumed that flooding and mudslides after wildfires were linked to the waxy coating that builds up on charred soil, preventing water absorption. Researchers found that water flow came ...

Salinity Changes Threatening Marine Ecosystems

July 12, 2023 — A groundbreaking study reveals the critical yet severely understudied factor of salinity changes in ocean and coastlines caused by climate ...