Landslips are natural disasters where the ground moves downhill because of gravity, taking soil, rocks, or anything that comes along the way. Landslips are very destructive, causing loss of life and destruction of property and infrastructure resulting in significant financial damage amounting to billions of dollars each year.
Landslips can happen for various reasons, including geological factors (like the type of soil or rocks), geomorphology (how the land is shaped), physical factors (such as tectonic activities), and even human activities (such as land clearing). However, all landslides have one thing in common: they need a trigger to occur.
The trigger is an external event or forcing event that sets off the landslips. Some common triggers include heavy rainfall, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, storm waves, or fast- flowing rivers that erode the slopes. Among these triggers, rainfall is responsible for about 90% of landslips. When it rains heavily for a period of time, the soil becomes soaked with water, making it unstable and more likely to collapse.
Because of climate change, heavy rain events are expected to increase in frequency. This means that the risk of landslips may also increase. Here, the method used to predict the annual probability of landslips is driven by changes in extreme precipitation due to climate change.