Landslides. How can communities be prepared? Is there any way to predict them? | Homepage [Video]

The Southeast is a mountainous region. When it comes to building in the area, a lot goes into it. John Thornley is a Geotech engineer.

“Oftentimes we do a lot of homework before we go out and do a site investigation to evaluate what kind of information we have available,” he shared.

But engineering and surveying can only do so much.

He continued saying, “Slopes can change over time. That’s probably one thing that we’re seeing often broadly, is that slopes that we have identified as stable back in the day may not be stable anymore.”

Sitka is one place that is familiar with landslides. After a fatal landslide in 2015, they decided to do something about it. Over at the Sitka Sound Science Center, they began to work.

Senior researcher Ron Heintz went on to say, “The approach was to identify conditions that could be counted on being measured continuously.”

The result is the Sitka Landslide Risk website. …