Land stability is of increasing concern in the U.S., as nearly 44% of the nation. could potentially experience landslide activity, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). In response, the agency has released a new nationwide landslide susceptibility map that provides a highly detailed, county-by-county picture of where these damaging, disruptive and potentially deadly geologic hazards are more likely as well as areas where landslide hazards are negligible.

The new map will shore up risk-reduction and land-use planning efforts by showing where potentially unstable areas are so planners and engineers can better prioritize and mitigate future landslide hazards. USGS researchers used an inventory of nearly 1 million previous landslides, high-resolution national elevation data from the USGS 3D Elevation Program, and advanced computing to build a comprehensive landslide susceptibility model. The resulting map of the contiguous U.S., Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico focuses in on landslide locations by using much higher resolution data than existing continental and global landslide maps.

The publicly accessible and interactive map shows landslide susceptibility with colors ranging from yellow (lower) to red (higher), while areas with no color have negligible risk. The new map can also be used to identify areas where more landslide mapping is needed and how the improvements can better inform landslide mitigation.

A paper describing this cartographic approach is published in AGU Advances.