Landslide Volume Estimation from Seismic Waveform Features Using a Global Catalog of Seismogenic Events

Abstract Seismic waves generated by large, rapid landslides encode information about the source and can be analyzed rapidly following an event. Even remote landslides can pose hazards to downstream communities, so rapid detection and characterization using existing seismic monitoring networks could be beneficial. In this study, we expand on past regionally limited work by presenting a globally applicable method for estimating landslide volume from seismic features that could be integrated into future landslide seismic monitoring frameworks. We train the model using multivariable linear regression and five seismic features derived from recordings of 129 landslide events of a range of styles and locations with independently estimated volumes. We present two preferred models, one that combines long-period (LP) and high-frequency (HF) features and one for use on smaller landslides without observed long-period signals. We find that our best-performing model, applicable to landslides larger than 100,​000 m3 with signals containing observable long-period energy, requires only two features: LP (20–100 s) absolute maximum amplitude and HF (1–5 Hz) rise time (time between the signal start and the maximum envelope amplitude) and has an R2 score of 0.79. This model predicted volumes within one order of magnitude for 55 out of 58 events. We find that this combination mitigates the trade-off between mass and acceleration and other variations of landslide style that limit methods based on amplitude alone.