Spatially distributed rainfall information and its potential for regional landslide early warning systems

Author(s): Ekrem Canli, Bernd Loigge, Thomas Glade
Abstract: Crucial to most landslide early warning system (EWS) is the precise prediction of rainfall in space and time. Researchers are aware of the importance of the spatial variability of rainfall in landslide studies. Commonly, however, it is neglected by implementing simplified approaches (e.g. representative rain gauges for an entire area). With spatially differentiated rainfall information, real-time comparison with rainfall thresholds or the implementation in process-based approaches might form the basis for improved landslide warnings. This study suggests an automated workflow from the hourly, web-based collection of rain gauge data to the generation of spatially differentiated rainfall predictions based on deterministic and geostatistical methods. With kriging usually being a labour-intensive, manual task, a simplified variogram modelling routine was applied for the automated processing of up-to-date point information data. Validation showed quite satisfactory results, yet it also revealed the drawbacks that are associated with univariate geostatistical interpolation techniques which solely rely on rain gauges (e.g. smoothing of data, difficulties in resolving small-scale, highly intermittent rainfall). In the perspective, the potential use of citizen scientific data is highlighted for the improvement of studies on landslide EWS.
Organisation(s): Department of Geography and Regional Research
Journal: Natural Hazards
Volume: 91
Pages: 103–127
No. of pages: 25
ISSN: 0921-030X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-2953-9
Publication date: 2017
Peer reviewed: Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012: 105404 Geomorphology
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Water Science and Technology, Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous), Atmospheric Science
Portal url: https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/26db766f-0ce6-45eb-b057-88686abda020

Back