Probabilistic modeling of seismically triggered landslides using Monte Carlo simulations

The 2004 Chuetsu earthquakes of Niigata (Japan) triggered numerous landslides, and the most widespread types of landslides were highly disrupted, relatively shallow slides and soil (debris) flows. This paper presented a method to evaluate slope instability using Newmark displacement on a pixel-by-pixel basis in a given area. The proposed method was able to integrate Newmark displacement modeling and Monte Carlo simulations within geographical information systems. In the modeling, an empirical attenuation relationship was utilized to calculate Arias intensity over this study area, and the variability of geotechnical parameters was taken into account to calculate coseismic landslide displacement. Before deriving the displacement from related inputs, the Monte Carlo simulations ran 1,500 times and generated 1,500 displacement values for each grid cell, and then means and standard deviations of displacement were calculated and probabilistic distributions can be obtained. Finally, given 10 cm as a threshold value of displacement, estimated probabilities of displacement exceeding 10 cm were shown as a map of seismic landslide hazards. The resulting hazard map was classified into four categories from very low to high level.