Utah Poised to Adopt Geologic Hazard Ordinances

As we mentioned in a previous post, the State of Utah had experienced several slope failures in approved, permitted subdivisions. Those failures prompted the governor to form the Geologic Hazards Working Group (GHWG) to evaluate […]

Anyone who owns a house or is looking to buy one should be aware that nearly all home owner’s insurance policies will not cover them in the event their home is damaged by common geologic processes including floods, landslides, earthquakes, subsidence, and expansive or swelling soils. (Image by Geology.com)

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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!

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