Landslide susceptibility (global, NASA)
This layer maps how susceptible the land surface is to landslides across the world.
Source: NASA Global Landslide Susceptibility (Stanley & Kirschbaum) Year: 2017 Category: Physical risks · Mitigating services · Geological Coverage: Global Format: Raster grid (~2 km) Used in risk analysis: Yes — gates Mitigating services
What it shows
This layer maps how susceptible the land surface is to landslides across the world. It indicates where the combination of terrain and environmental conditions makes landslides more likely, which is relevant for assessing physical hazard to sites, infrastructure and surrounding ecosystems.
How it is built
The source is NASA's Global Landslide Susceptibility Map (Stanley & Kirschbaum), a thematic classification of landslide potential built from factors such as slope, geology and land cover. The native mapping is at roughly 1 km resolution and is resampled to a roughly 2 km grid for this layer, taking the most representative class in each cell. It is intended as a broad screening layer, not a site-specific siting tool.
How to read it
Susceptibility is expressed on a six-level class scale: 0 None, 1 Very low, 2 Low, 3 Moderate, 4 High and 5 Very high. Higher classes indicate greater inherent likelihood of landslides in that area.
Class thresholds
This is a categorical susceptibility layer, not a continuous physical flux: it expresses the inherent likelihood of landslides as a six-level qualitative class, derived by NASA from terrain and environmental factors (slope, geology, land cover). The values are an ordinal hazard scale, not a measured quantity in physical units:
| Value | Class |
|---|---|
| 0 | None |
| 1 | Very low |
| 2 | Low |
| 3 | Moderate |
| 4 | High |
| 5 | Very high |
A site is flagged on the Mitigating services dimension when the layer reaches class 3 (Moderate) or above and the entity's "Soil and sediment retention" ENCORE pressure is material (template: "Moderate-to-high landslide susceptibility zone (NASA LSM class >= 3)").
How these thresholds were set. The six-class susceptibility scheme is defined by NASA's Global Landslide Susceptibility Map methodology (Stanley & Kirschbaum); the rules that assign each cell to a class are set in that source and are not reproduced in Darwin's configuration. Darwin's choice to escalate the flag at Moderate (class ≥ 3) is the only in-house element.
Reference: NASA Global Landslide Susceptibility Map (Stanley & Kirschbaum; Stanley et al., 2017).
Source
NASA Global Landslide Susceptibility Map (Stanley & Kirschbaum).
Comparison with the WWF Risk Filter Suite
This layer maps to WWF Biodiversity Risk Filter indicator S3_1 Landslides. It is aligned with WWF, drawing on the same NASA source family (Stanley et al., 2017).
Risk analysis
A site is flagged on a dimension by combining a proximity trigger (this layer) with an activity trigger (the entity's ENCORE pressure/service). Proximity only → Potentially material; proximity and the matching ENCORE pressure/service is material → Very material; neither → Not material.
| Dimension | ENCORE service / pressure | Proximity trigger (this layer) | Activity trigger (entity) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mitigating services | Soil and sediment retention | Layer value above 3 | “Soil and sediment retention” pressure ≥ 4 |
Legend
Symbolised field: Landslide susceptibility
| Value (Landslide susceptibility) | Label | Colour |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | None | #ffffcc |
| 1 | Very low | #d9f0a3 |
| 2 | Low | #addd8e |
| 3 | Moderate | #fdae61 |
| 4 | High | #f46d43 |
| 5 | Very high | #d73027 |
Generated from darwin/layers/layer-landslide-global.toml and risk_indicator_pairs.toml (develop).