Map data from landslides triggered by Hurricane Maria in four study areas of Puerto Rico

Dates

Publication Date: 2019-05-30
Start Date: 2017-10-09
End Date: 2017-10-15

Citation

Bessette-Kirton, E.K., Coe, J.A., Kelly, M.A., Cerovski-Darriau, C. and Schulz, W.H., 2019, Map data from landslides triggered by Hurricane Maria in four study areas of Puerto Rico: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9OW4SLX.

Summary

In September 2017, Hurricane Maria caused widespread landsliding throughout mountainous regions of Puerto Rico. Nearly all landslides mobilized as debris flows (Bessette-Kirton et al., 2019), but herein, we simply use the term “landslides” when describing all types of slope failures that occurred during Hurricane Maria. To examine the extent and physical characteristics of landslides in severely impacted areas (defined as having high landslide density (>25 landslides/km2) by Bessette-Kirton et al., 2017, 2019), we mapped individual landslides at scales between 1:600 and 1:1,000 in four 2.5 km2 study areas in the Mayagüez/Añasco/Las Marías (LAM1), Las Marías/Lares (LAM2), Naranjito (NAR), and Utuado (UTU) municipalities. We used aerial [...]

Summary

In September 2017, Hurricane Maria caused widespread landsliding throughout mountainous regions of Puerto Rico. Nearly all landslides mobilized as debris flows (Bessette-Kirton et al., 2019), but herein, we simply use the term “landslides” when describing all types of slope failures that occurred during Hurricane Maria. To examine the extent and physical characteristics of landslides in severely impacted areas (defined as having high landslide density (>25 landslides/km²) by Bessette-Kirton et al., 2017, 2019), we mapped individual landslides at scales between 1:600 and 1:1,000 in four 2.5 km² study areas in the Mayagüez/Añasco/Las Marías (LAM1), Las Marías/Lares (LAM2), Naranjito (NAR), and Utuado (UTU) municipalities. We used aerial imagery collected between 9-15 October 2017 (Quantum Spatial, Inc., 2017) to map landslide source and runout areas. In addition to imagery, we used 1 m-resolution pre-event LiDAR (U.S. Geological Survey, 2018) as a digital base map for our mapping.

The map data consist of landslide polygons, headscarp points, and travel distance lines. Each landslide polygon includes the total affected area (LSArea) and the number of mapped headscarp points (HeadscarpPoints). Each headscarp point contains attributes for the elevation measured at the distal end of the associated travel distance line (MinElev), the elevation at the headscarp point (MaxElev), slope at the headscarp point (Slope), aspect at the headscarp point (Aspect), the length of the associated maximum travel distance line (MaxTravelDist), and the ratio of total fall height (H: MaxElev-MinElev) to maximum travel distance (L: MaxTravelDist). Each travel distance line includes the length of the line (MaxTravelDist). Areas containing a combination of landslide and flood deposits were mapped as landslide/flood deposits (LSFlood). The data also include study area boundaries (AOIs). The data are provided as ArcGIS point, line, and polygon feature class files, all of which are contained within a file geodatabase (PRMariaLandslides.gdb).

References:

Bessette-Kirton, E.K., Cerovski-Darriau, C., Schulz, W.H., Coe, J.A., Kean, J.W., Godt, J.W, Thomas, M.A., and Hughes, K. Stephen, 2019, Landslides Triggered by Hurricane Maria: Assessment of an Extreme Event in Puerto Rico: GSA Today, v. 29, doi:10.1130/GSATG383A.1

Bessette-Kirton, E.K., Coe, J.A., Godt, J.W., Kean, J.W., Rengers, F.K., Schulz, W.H., Baum, R.L., Jones, E.S., and Staley, D.M., 2017, Map data showing concentration of landslides caused by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/F7JD4VRF.

Quantum Spatial, Inc., 2017, FEMA PR Imagery: https://s3.amazonaws.com/fema-cap-imagery/Others/Maria (accessed October 2017).

U.S. Geological Survey, 2018, USGS NED Original Product Resolution PR Puerto Rico 2015: http://nationalmap.gov/elevation.html (accessed October 2018).

Contacts

Point of Contact :: Jeffrey A Coe
Originator :: Erin K. Bessette-Kirton, Jeffrey A. Coe, Matthew A. Kelly, Corina Cerovski-Darriau, William H. Schulz
Metadata Contact :: Jeffrey A Coe
Publisher :: U.S. Geological Survey
Distributor :: U.S. Geological Survey - ScienceBase
SDC Data Owner :: Landslide Hazards Program
USGS Mission Area :: Natural Hazards

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PRMariaLandslides_FGDC.xml Original FGDC Metadata	View	14.12 KB	application/fgdc+xml
PRMariaLandslidesMetadata.zip		88.96 KB	application/zip
PRMariaLandslides.gdb.zip		757.03 KB	application/zip

Purpose

The purpose of this mapping was to characterize landslides triggered by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. We mapped landslides in four severely impacted areas with different geologic materials to assess the source and runout characteristics of landslides and to investigate the similarities and differences in landslide features between geologic materials.

Map data from landslides triggered by Hurricane Maria in four study areas of Puerto Rico

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