How do earthquake triggered landslides contribute to landscape evolution?

Earthquakes can trigger the failure of tens of thousands of landslides throughout tectonically active landscapes.  Predicting the location and magnitude of landslides triggered by seismic shaking remains challenging and adds to the risk of those living in these steep landscapes. In addition to the serious human impact, the geomorphic consequences of the simultaneous triggering of thousands of landslides are likely significant. Moreover, the long-term impact of earthquake triggered landslides on landscape evolution remains relatively unexplored, including the potential for geomorphic patterns or processes to be used to identify regions of landsliding. Here we present first findings on the use of a numerical landscape evolution model to explore how earthquake triggered landslides modulate sediment transport processes and feedbacks, the morphometric implications of these feedbacks, and the strength of these impacts when compared to other geomorphic processes. We implement the landscape evolution model using the Landlab modeling ecosystem and simulate fluvial and hillslope processes as well as explicit landsliding. While analyzing landslide behavior through various timescales (From hundreds of years to tens of thousands of years), we focus on the spatial occurrence and clustering of landslides, test the impact of environmental factors such as precipitation variability and investigate the impact of spatially and temporally varying earthquake triggers. We propose the use of topographic signatures including hilltop concavity, drainage density, and slope-area relationships as ways to validate our models.