Since the Oso landslide, the emerging question in many meetings, panel discussions and brainstorming sessions is about other slopes across the country having a significant collapse potential with the deadly effects as the Oso event. Geotechnical engineer Joe Wartman, member of the scientific team studying the landslide answers that it is not possible to know. The reason for this being primarily the lack of data.
As the first anniversary of the deadly Oso landslide approaches, Wartman and his co-workers are struggling to keep the issue alive and make sure that action will be taken from the lessons learned. According to Kathy Troost, UW geologist, among the needs to avoid future events like that to occur, is the detailed mapping and identification of hazardous slopes and then come up with efficient ways to communicate that information to homeowners and local authorities.
Since the Oso event, "momentum seems to be building" according to Jonathan Godt, leader of the USGS program for landslide hazard. That is true, considering the $6.6 million fund searched by the Washington Department of Natural Resources looks to hire new geologists and invest on its landslide inventory. At a national level, there will be an extra of $550,000 added to USGS's landslide-hazard budget.
But even if landslide hazard inventory is expanded, regulating land use in landslide prone areas will be another major challenge. A possible course of action would be buyout offers to homeowners, following the Christchurch New Zealand example. However, in North Carolina, a very promising mapping effort was stopped after fears that regulations on land use would cause a dramatic drop in property values.
Source: Yakimaherald
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