2014 Canadian Geotechnical Colloquium: Landslide runout analysis — current practice and challenges

Flow-like landslides, such as debris flows and rock avalanches, travel at extremely rapid velocities and can impact large areas far from their source. When hazards like these are identified, runout analyses are often needed to delineate potential inundation areas, estimate risks, and design mitigation structures. A variety of tools and methods have been developed for these purposes, ranging from simple empirical–statistical correlations to advanced three-dimensional computer models. This paper provides an overview of the tools and methods that are currently available and discusses some of the main challenges that are currently being addressed by researchers, including the need for better guidance in the selection of model input parameter values, the challenge of translating model results into vulnerability estimates, the problem with too much initial spreading in the simulation of certain types of landslides, the challenge of accounting for sudden channel obstructions in the simulation of debris flows, and the sensitivity of models to topographic resolution and filtering methods.