New Global Characterization of Landslide Exposure

Landslides triggered by intense rainfall are hazards that impact people and infrastructure across the world, but comprehensively quantifying exposure to these hazards remains challenging. Unlike earthquakes or flooding which cover large areas, landslides primarily occur in highly susceptible parts of a landscape affected by intense rainfall or seismic shaking, which may not intersect human settlement or infrastructure. Existing global landslide inventories generally include only those reported to have caused impacts, leading to significant biases toward both locations where impacts are common and areas with higher reporting capacity. To address the limits of report-based inventories, we have combined a globally homogenous landslide hazard proxy derived from satellite data with open-source datasets on population, roads and infrastructure to consistently estimate global exposure to landslide hazards. These exposure models compare favourably with existing datasets of rainfall-triggered landslide fatalities, while filling in major gaps in inventory-based estimates in parts of the world with lower reporting capacity. Our findings also, for the first time, distinguish relative levels of landslide hazard mitigation between different countries.