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GETSI's Earth-focused Modules and Courses for the Undergraduate Classroom
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This module is part of a growing collection of classroom-tested materials developed by GETSI. The materials engage students in understanding the earth system as it intertwines with key societal issues. The collection is freely available and ready to be adapted by undergraduate educators across a range of courses including: general education or majors courses in Earth-focused disciplines such as geoscience or environmental science, social science, engineering, and other sciences, as well as courses for interdisciplinary programs.
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For the Instructor

This material supports the Surface Process Hazards GETSI Module. If you would like your students to have access to this material, we suggest you either point them at the Student Version which omits the framing pages with information designed for faculty (and this box). Or you can download these pages in several formats that you can include in your course website or local Learning Managment System. Learn more about using, modifying, and sharing GETSI teaching materials.
Initial Publication Date: October 2, 2017

Welcome Students!

Worldwide landslides causes hundreds if not thousands of deaths per year and billions of dollars in damages. Many of these losses would be preventable if societies prioritized landslide mitigation. In this module you will learn to "read" the landscape to determine areas a risk of landsliding and methods for reducing loss. You will consider the environmental and societal impacts of mass wasting as well as the physical factors behind why some areas slide and others do not. Case study sites include Peru, Italy, and a variety of North American sites from Alaska to Utah to New York.

By the end of the module you will be able to

  1. Use geodetic data to analyze landscape characteristics and use them as indicators of mass-wasting hazards
  2. Articulate the societal effects of mass-wasting events and consider the role of natural and human-caused changes in the mass-wasting potential for a given landscape.

Unit 1: Slip-sliding away–case study landslides in Italy and Peru

How have mass-wasting events affected communities and what lessons have we learned from these natural disasters that might help us mitigate future hazards? In this unit, you will learn about two case studies of devastating landslides: 1970 Nevado Huascarán (Peru) and 2010 San Fratello (Sicily, Italy). Through reading and class discussion, you will be introduced to the landscape and societal characteristics that contributed to loss of property and life during the events.

Unit 2: Reading the landscape

Once your eyes learn what to recognize in a landscape, you can see so much information about the geologic history of any area, geologic hazards, and human land use. This unit will help you learn to really "see" what is in a landscape. You will learn how geologic, hydrologic, biologic, and built landscape features manifest themselves on maps. In this unit, you will use topographic maps, hillshade maps, and aerial imagery to learn to recognize a variety of landscape features and subsequently identify as many of these features as you can on a map of a new study area. You will also construct a topographic profile from the map data and use the profiles to understand the concepts of slope, aspect, and relief and how these landscape characteristics are important in hazard assessment and land-use planning.

Unit 3: Understanding landslide factors

How do slope characteristics and magnitude of forces dictate whether or not a slope will fail? Can environmental and built characteristics change the magnitude of these forces? In this unit, you will learn about the physics behind landslides. By studying slope angle, driving force, and frictional force you will learn more about predicting and hopefully preventing landslide disasters. Another map activity will help you think through how climatic, tectonic, and geologic factors, as well as population and land-use characteristics, can influence mass-wasting potential.

Unit 4: Anatomy of a tragic slide–Oso Landslide case study

Landslides can have profound societal consequences, such as the slide that occurred near Oso, Washington, in 2014. Forty-three people were killed and entire rural neighborhood was destroyed. In this unit, you will look at the larger plate tectonic and climatic setting for the landslide and then use hillshade images, topographic maps, and InSAR (interferometric synthetic aperture radar) to determine relationships between landscape characteristics and different types of mass wasting events. You will conclude by considering the societal costs of such a disaster and ways that communities can reduce risk in similar situations.


Unit 5: Mitigating future disasters—developing a mass-wasting hazard map

In this final unit you will act as a scientist, using geologic, climate, and societal data to evaluate an area's vulnerability to mass wasting. The case study area is Boulder Creek, Colorado, which had significant landsliding during a major rain event in 2013. You will use aerial imagery, topographic maps, bedrock and surficial geologic maps, slope/aspect maps, hillshade imagery, stream maps, and population-density maps to evaluate mass–wasting hazards. Building on what you learned throughout the earlier units, you will construct a hazard map for the study area and consider the impacts of a mass–wasting event on the area's inhabitants.


     

This module is part of a growing collection of classroom-tested materials developed by GETSI. The materials engage students in understanding the earth system as it intertwines with key societal issues. The collection is freely available and ready to be adapted by undergraduate educators across a range of courses including: general education or majors courses in Earth-focused disciplines such as geoscience or environmental science, social science, engineering, and other sciences, as well as courses for interdisciplinary programs.
Explore the Collection »