Mass Movement

Sentinel-1 radar coverage from before and after the 1 April 2017 mudslide in Mocoa, Colombia. Triggered by heavy rain, the landslide caused greatest movement (red) on top of a mountain. It then pushed mud down across the city of Mocoa (green) and crossed the nearby river. The Sentinel-1-derived data product (from scans on 20 March and 1 April) has been overlaid onto a Sentinel-1 radar image. Image: Modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by I. Parcharidis, Harokopio University of Athens.

Definition

Mass movements can be defined as as any type of downslope movement of earth materials, such as sediment, soil and rock material. Mass movements are processes of erosion, transport and accumulation of material that occur on both gentle and steep slopes mainly owing to gravitational forces (IRDR Glossary).

These movements are generally associated with other disasters such as earthquakes, floods, thunderstorms and heavy rainstorm. They can be also associated with manmade hazards like construction roads, buildings, structures, infrastructure facilities.

 

Facts and figures

Mass movements occur based on several factors and causes differ depending on different regions. Mass movements are affected by the slope gradient, climate, rock type and structure, physical setting and geological and geomorphological outlines (Advances in Geosciences).

Mass-wasting events come in many shapes, sizes and speeds. Typically, the steeper the angle of a slope, the faster will be the down-slope movement of rock and sediment.  Also, water can play a significant role in mass wasting, sometimes acting as the key component to a mass-wasting event, or serving as a lubricant within a mass of sediment and rock, enabling it to travel faster and further than it would otherwise.

 

One type of mass wasting can evolve into another type of mass wasting as the body of sediment/rock moves down a slope. This can make it difficult to classify a single event as being one type of mass wasting or another (Department of Geological Sciences, California State University).

A simple classification of the different types of mass wasting can be:

  • Falls  (rock fall and rock avalanche)        
  • Slides  (rock slide, landslide and slump)      
  • Flows  (rock avalanche, debris flow, earth flow and creep).

Further information

FAO’s Mass movement control guidelines
Evaluation of Different Machine Learning Methods and Deep-Learning Convolutional Neural Networks for Landslide Detection
BC Campus Open Education, Classification of Mass Wasting

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The MoU brings together NASA's wealth of open-source spacecraft data, tools, and expertise and UNOOSA's unique position as the only UN entity dedicated to outer space affairs, to expand global opportunities to leverage the benefits of space. The partners will design capacity-building programmes, particularly for institutions in countries that do not yet have or that are developing space capabilities, to help them access space.

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The meeting, which consisted of three two-hour-long sessions, brought together a total of over 200 disaster management stakeholders... read more

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Regional Support Offices mentioned:
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Data Source

World Settlement Footprint 2015 (WSF - DLR-EOC)
Publishing institution: Earth Observation Center (EOC) at DLR
DLR's Earth Observation Center (EOC) utilises satellite data to map human settlements on a global level with high accuracy. The World Settlement Footprint (WSF) 2015 gives an overview and insight into urban structures in the year 2015. The satellites Landsat 8 and Sentinel 1 (A/B) are responsible for providing optical and satellite imagery from 2014-2015 for WSF data.
Global High Resolution Population Density Maps (Facebook Connectivity Lab, CIESIN)
Population Density Map. Image: Facebook Connectivity
Publishing institution: Facebook Connectivity Lab, Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) - Columbia University
Facebook Connectivity Lab in collaboration with the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Colombia University combines machine vision AI with satellite imagery and census information to create population density maps. With the integration of demographic information, specifically related to age and gender, these maps collectively provide information on both the location and the demographic of a population in a certain country. The population density maps cover the majority of countries around the world.
Global High Resolution Population Density Maps (Facebook Connectivity Lab, CIESIN)
Population Density Map. Image: Facebook Connectivity
Publishing institution: Facebook Connectivity Lab, Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) - Columbia University
Facebook Connectivity Lab in collaboration with the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Colombia University combines machine vision AI with satellite imagery and census information to create population density maps. With the integration of demographic information, specifically related to age and gender, these maps collectively provide information on both the location and the demographic of a population in a certain country. The population density maps cover the majority of countries around the world.
Global Tailings Project (GRID Arendal)
Global Tailings Portal (GRID Arendal)
Publishing institution: GRID Arendal

Evento

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Regional Support Offices mentioned:
Argentina Regional Support Office, Brazil Regional Support Office, Colombia Regional Support Office, Mexico Regional Support Office

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