Automated landslide mapping using spectral analysis and high-resolution topographic data: Puget Sound lowlands, Washington, and Portland Hills, Oregon

Abstract

Landslide inventory maps are necessary for assessing landslide hazards and addressing the role slope stability plays in landscape evolution over geologic timescales. However, landslide inventory maps produced with traditional methods — aerial photograph interpretation, topographic map analysis, and field inspection — are often subjective and incomplete. The increasing availability of high-resolution topographic data acquired via airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) over broad swaths of terrain invites new, automated landslide mapping procedures. We present two methods of spectral analysis that utilize LiDAR-derived digital elevation models of the Puget Sound lowlands, Washington, and the Tualatin Mountains, Oregon, to quantify and automatically map the topographic signatures of deep-seated landslides. Power spectra produced using the two-dimensional discrete Fourier transform and the two-dimensional continuous wavelet transform identify the characteristic spatial frequencies of deep-seated landslide morphologic features such as hummocky topography, scarps, and displaced blocks of material. Spatial patterns in the amount of spectral power concentrated in these characteristic frequency bands highlight past slope instabilities and allow the delineation of landslide terrain. When calibrated by comparison with detailed, independently compiled landslide inventory maps, our algorithms correctly classify an average of 82% of the terrain in our five study areas. Spectral analysis also allows the creation of dominant wavelength maps, which prove useful in analyzing meter-scale topographic expressions of landslide mechanics, past landslide activity, and landslide-modifying geomorphic processes. These results suggest that our automated landslide mapping methods can create accurate landslide maps and serve as effective, objective, and efficient tools for digital terrain analysis.