Utah Poised to Adopt Geologic Hazard Ordinances
Geologic Hazards
Utah Considers Stricter Rules for Development in Landslide Prone Areas
The Utah Governer’s Geologic Hazards Working Group, which includes no one from the private sector, is considering some model legislation that can be adopted by cities and counties to make it more difficult for developers to build in landslide prone areas. Also, among other things, the group may recommend that Utah adopt stricter grading requirements based on the experiences of California. Read on for more info.
Available Resources
Free Online Access to Natural Hazards Journal
Springer, publisher of a number of geo-related journals and books is having a promotion offering free online access to their Natural Hazards journal. The access is good for 30 days from October 22 so go check it out now. (Image copyright Springer).
Available Resources
Utah Releases Landslide Susceptibility Map
The Utah Geologic Survey has released a "Landslide Susceptibility Map of Utah". They apparently relied quite heavily on GIS based thresholding of existing slope angles but only after they had statistically analyzed failure angles for particular geologic units. So it sounds like they throw the known landslides, the geologic map of Utah and a DEM into the GIS a blend it all up. Perhaps a slight oversimplification!