The Ground Like Water: Civilization's Response to Landslide Hazards

in #science6 years ago

On the morning of August 14, 2017, a mudslide in Regent, Sierra Leone killed nearly 500 people, with 10,000 driven from their homes. It was triggered by intensely heavy rains over a few days, resulting in a slope failure at the regolith-bedrock boundary.


2017 Regent Landslide. [Image source

While this was a particularly severe landslide, this isn't an uncommon occurrence- thousands of people per year are killed by landslides, and the number is steadily rising from year to year. This is partially due to shifting climates, but the greater part is the expansion of civilization into previously wild areas. Humans have a particularly bad habit of assuming they can ignore nature or control it.

This isn't a new habit of humanity, unfortunately, nor one limited to the developing world. Landslides in LA kill far more people on average each year than earthquakes do, and have ever since the city began expanding into the San Gabriel mountains. The Oso, Washington landslide of 2014 killed 43 people, despite repeated warnings that the town was situated below an extremely dangerous landslide zone.


2014 Oso mudslide. There was a town here once. [Image Source]

This dismissal of nature- this idea that we can control or dominate the world around us- is a viciously dangerous one. It's resulted in countless catastrophes in recent history. We simply can't ignore the world around us and expect everything to turn out just fine. There wasn't any work of engineering that could have stopped either the Oso or Regent landslides. The LA landslides are only held at bay by a massively complex series of artificial channels and reservoirs, and it's hugely expensive and work-intensive. The Earth is exponentially larger and mightier than we are, and we have to work around its dangers, rather than expecting ourselves to be able to overwhelm them every time.

There are some fairly effective methods of preventing landslide fatalities out there. Landslide generation is a very complex topic, but a few rules of thumb can be very effective. First off, be really careful about building on steep slopes. Second, avoid deforesting areas above said steep slopes- that greatly exacerbates erosion and landslide potential. Third, avoid excessive water features like pools or well watered lawns on steep slopes- they also contribute to the problem. Cutting roads in the wrong place can also provoke landslides. Actually, I could go on and on for a few hours. Honestly, a good rule of thumb would be to just listen to geologists when they tell you it's a bad idea to build somewhere.

I'm not just here to complain that this wouldn't be a problem if people would just listen to us geologists, however. Though that would be nice, ultimately it's too easy just to pawn off the responsibility onto people and governments for not listening to our warnings. We as geologists bear a responsibility to not only understand and predict catastrophes of this nature as well as we can, but to clearly communicate their dangers to the public as well, and this isn't something we always succeed at. While I'm still a student, this doesn't absolve me from the responsibilities of the greater geological community.

There's a real tendency among geologists to think about catastrophes- whether landslides, earthquakes, volcanoes, or any number of others- from a strictly scholarly. We're worried about the numbers and the causes, and we lose track of the human element. We lose track of the heartbroken survivors who have lost everyone, and the families that have vanished entirely. I'm certainly guilty of this myself. To an extent we need to be able to distance ourselves from the human cost to be able to do our jobs, but we cannot allow ourselves to forget that cost, either.


**************************************************
Bibliography:

http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2017/08/15/regent-landslide-1/

http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2017/08/21/regent-landslide-2/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyP12L1srEk&t=1s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Oso_mudslide

The Control of Nature, by John McPhee

Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization, by David R. Montgomery

Sort:  

You're killing it with these posts! I sometimes think I need to go back to school and learn more about this, then I remember I can just wait for you to teach us all...

Cheers

I always encourage people to go back to school, or at least to keep learning as a habit in life!

Hi @mountainwashere!

I'm happy to include this post in the next CTR Crossword Puzzle No.-6. This post will be linked in all related CTR Crossword posts . All participants for this puzzle will land on this post to find their answers to it

Thank you for creating awesome content which is just perfect for our participants!

Awesome, that's really cool! I post a lot of similar content, feel free to use any of it in rhe future!

Great post & story. Taking the trees out is the problem IMHO
no roots to hold the earth together. It's like taking the re-bar out of concrete.

Rather than clearing, maybe "tree houses" or something?

$0.02

Learning to live with nature rather than battling it is one of the great challenges of our time.

Can not even imagine what its like to be caught in that.

It's a very, very quick death much of the time- the sheer power of landslides is horrifying.

This wonderful post has received a bellyrub 3.07 % upvote from @bellyrub thanks to this cool cat: @mountainwashere. My pops @zeartul is one of your top steemit witness, if you like my bellyrubs please go vote for him, if you love what he is doing vote for this comment as well.

hehe that was something really different :D

Different than what?

Your post seems a little spam-like. You'll get much better reactions from the Steemit community if you give more in depth responses to posts that actually address their topics.

Loading...

This post has received a 1.98 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @mountainwashere.

Love the creativity! best wishes.

Your comment seems a little spammy- you'll be better received if you actually discuss the subject matter of the post you're commenting on.

Great post - very well written! It's an interesting topic you picked - hopefully we know now what to do in case something like this occurs!

Don't be in its path.

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.35
TRX 0.12
JST 0.040
BTC 71539.00
ETH 3603.23
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.75