Jan. 3, Yuankun Xu and Zhong Lu, geophysicists within the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences at SMU Dallas, for a piece about their groundbreaking research on mapping West Coast landslides in order to forewarn emergency services agencies about looming death and destruction. Published in Inside Sources under the heading New Technology Mapping Landslides Can Save Lives, Mitigate Damage: https://bit.ly/3EXf9tk
It’s that time of year on the West Coast when emergency managers prepare for a host of catastrophic weather events — everything from Pineapple Express systems that dump intense rains on the regions to the flooding and landslides that often follow.
Landslides are a near-constant threat to the safety of communities and infrastructure in this part of the U.S. Once an unstable slope gives away, the formed debris flow could travel at a speed exceeding 35 mph, leaving limited time to evacuate people along the flow path and often leading to devastating consequences. Some other landslides, though not evolving into deadly flows, result in constant damages to highways, houses and underground infrastructure.
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