Articles | Volume 26, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-1745-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-1745-2026
Research article
 | 
16 Apr 2026
Research article |  | 16 Apr 2026

The damability function: a probabilistic approach to regional landslide dam susceptibility analysis applied to the Oregon Coast Range, USA

Paul M. Morgan, Alex Grant, Will Struble, Sean LaHusen, and Alison Duvall

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Cited articles

Alvioli, M., Marchesini, I., Reichenbach, P., Rossi, M., Ardizzone, F., Fiorucci, F., and Guzzetti, F.: Automatic delineation of geomorphological slope units with r.slopeunits v1.0 and their optimization for landslide susceptibility modeling, Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 3975–3991, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3975-2016, 2016. 
Argentin, A.-L., Robl, J., Prasicek, G., Hergarten, S., Hölbling, D., Abad, L., and Dabiri, Z.: Controls on the formation and size of potential landslide dams and dammed lakes in the Austrian Alps, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 1615–1637, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1615-2021, 2021. 
Barnhart, K. R., Romero, V. Y., and Clifford, K. R.: User needs assessment for postfire debris-flow inundation hazard products, US Geol. Surv. Open-File Rep., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20231025, 2023. 
Bellugi, D. G., Milledge, D. G., Cuffey, K. M., Dietrich, W. E., and Larsen, L. G.: Controls on the size distributions of shallow landslides, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 118, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2021855118, 2021. 
Bonnard, C.: Technical and Human Aspects of Historic Rockslide – 55 Dammed Lakes and Landslide Dam Breaches, in: Natural and Artificial Rockslide Dams, edited by: Evans, S., Hermanns, R., Strom, A., and Scarascia-Mugnozza, G., Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences, 133, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1, 101–122, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04764-0_3, 2011. 
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Short summary
When landslides dam rivers, the impacts can include catastrophic outburst flooding. This work defines a function that combines river valley widths and landslide volumes to find the likelihood that a river will be dammed by a potential landslide or ‘damability’. We apply the method to the Oregon Coast Range and find widespread high damability especially where rivers flow through steep mountains with strong rocks. Our new workflow is flexible and can be applied more broadly to other regions.
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