Thomas Glade

• PhD
• Head of Department at University of Vienna

In May 2024, a Mega Disaster hit 96% of the municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul (RS) state, southern Brazil, causing 182 casualties and impacting approximately 2.4 million people. In addition to the floods that hit the capital Porto Alegre, more than 15,000 landslides were recorded due to the extreme rainfall event (> 600 mm in some regions), sever...

The Mega Disaster that occurred in May 2024, reaching Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Brazil, resulted in more than 15,000 landslides, affecting nearly 18,000 km2. In this study, we generated a landslide susceptibility map based on historical landslide data (1995-2017) and assessed its capacity to forecast the 2024 landslides. Based on the Random Forest al...

The current method for dividing slope units primarily relies on hydrological analysis methods, which consider only geomorphological factors and fail to reveal the geological boundaries during landslides. Consequently, this approach does not fully satisfy the requirements for detailed landslide susceptibility assessments at the township scale. To ad...

This study presents an innovative application of force-energy equilibrium analysis to evaluate failure extension lengths (FEL) in excavation-induced translational landslides. Utilizing a combination of field data, mechanical balance analysis, and numerical simulations, we systematically investigate the effect of excavation on landslide dynamics. Ou...

The rapid development of rural regions, the mountainous landscape, and frequent subtropical-typhoon-related rainfall have collectively contributed to a high incidence of cut slope-induced landslides in the coastal areas of eastern China. Despite the escalating risk, there has been a noticeable absence of comprehensive hazard assessments and targete...

This study delves into the complexities of landslide hazard and risk analysis in specific regions, highlighting the reliance on run-out models and the challenges posed by data limitations. It underscores the uncertainty in assessing the probability of cascading hazard events, such as landslides leading to flooding, due to inadequate hydro-meteorolo...

This chapter discusses the study areas located in Lower Austria, specifically in the Austrian Alpine Foreland region, which lies between the northern foothills of the Alps and the Danube River. Characterized by gentle to hilly terrains, these areas are composed of soft, non-consolidated sediments, making them highly suitable for agriculture, urbani...

This section presents comprehensive landslide risk assessments for the regions of Erla, Behamberg, and Kreisbach. Utilizing advanced modeling techniques, the study evaluates various scenarios involving landslides with differing fluidity and viscosity levels. The research focuses on understanding the potential run-out, deposition depths, flow speeds...

This chapter outlines the comprehensive methodology employed in the study, encompassing four primary stages: data collection and processing, creation of modeled scenarios, modeling, and risk analysis. The initial stage involves gathering crucial datasets like Digital Elevation Models (DEM), cadastral and infrastructure maps, and on-site observation...

In this work, the results of an ongoing investigation in the Brandstatt landslide (Lower Austria) are presented. The unstable slope is characterized by a complex, slow-moving earth slides system, located in a geological transition zone between the Flysch and the Klippen Units and the Molasse zone, which is known to be a landslide-prone area. These...

Rainfall and reservoir water level are commonly regarded as the two major influencing factors for reservoir landslides and are employed for landslide displacement prediction, yet their daily data are readily available with current monitoring technology, which makes a more refined analysis possible. However, until now, few efforts have been made to...

Landslides pose a significant risk to human life and property, making landslide susceptibility mapping (LSM) a crucial component of landslide risk assessment. However, spatial correlations among mapping units are often neglected in statistical or machine learning models proposed for LSM. This study proposes KNN-GCN, a deep learning model for slope-...

Current machine learning approaches to landslide susceptibility modeling often involve grading conditioning factors, a method characterized by substantial subjectivity and randomness. The necessity and rationality of such grading have sparked continued debate. Recognizing the potential profound impact of this grading on the results of models, we co...

Slopes with clay-rich, deeply weathered soils, such as those present in the Flysch Zone of Lower Austria, are prone to landslide processes. Even though generally being of low magnitude and velocity, they can cause substantial economic losses and threaten settlements as well as infrastructure. Previous studies have demonstrated the importance of sub...

The application of ensemble learning models has been continuously improved in recent landslide susceptibility research, but most studies have no unified ensemble framework. Moreover, few papers have discussed the applicability of the ensemble learning model in landslide susceptibility mapping at the township level. This study aims at defining a rob...

The reservoir landslides are characterized by repeated phases of acceleration and isokinetic deformation under long-term periodic external forces. The state-of-the-art research lacks reliable prediction methods and judgment of their evolution stages. This work promotes the application of the deep learning algorithm and landslide evolution model in...

Landslides are one of the most important and frequent geological hazards worldwide. Among the many different types and processes, slow and very slow mass movements are often underestimated, even if they can impact local infrastructures and permanently affect agricultural practices and land use planning. Slow-moving landslides are common in clay-ric...

Landslides are one of the most significant natural hazards worldwide. They can have far-reaching negative impacts on societies in different socio-economic sectors as well as on the landscape. Among the different types and processes that can also affect infrastructure and land use planning, slow-moving landslides are often underestimated. Therefore,...

Understanding changes in hydraulic properties of the subsurface is critical to delineate areas susceptible for groundwater accumulation and the triggering of landslides. Laboratory studies have demonstrated the possibility to estimate the hydraulic conductivity from induced polarization (IP) measurements. However, to-date only rare studies have bee...

Massive rockslides are recognized as one of the most catastrophic hazards due to their rapid sliding velocity and high destructiveness. This study focuses on the progressive failure analysis of translational rockslides (PFTRs) on a cataclinal dip slope, whose shear failure develops mainly along the bedding plane of the underlying strata from the he...

Complex, slow-moving landslides are common in deeply weathered soils with clay-rich layers, as can be found in the Flysch Zone of Lower Austria. Complex process behaviour on differing spatio-temporal scales calls for long-term measurement series on both surface and subsurface parameters. Only then, dynamics and interrelations with possible triggeri...

Both complex, slow-moving landslides and soil erosion depict the challenge that small process rates and changes in surface height can occur—yet over a larger area and, respectively or on different parts of an affected area or mass. While changes in the order of only millimetres per observation period are common for soil erosion, changes in surface...

In recent decades, data-driven landslide susceptibility models (DdLSM), which are based on statistical or machine learning approaches, have become popular to estimate the relative spatial probability of landslide occurrence. The available literature is composed of a wealth of published studies and that has identified a large variety of challenges a...

Landslides of the slide-type movement are common on slopes of the federal state of Vorarlberg. This chapter focuses on landslides located in the Walgau region, where both shallow and deep-seated slope movements are widespread and leave a distinct geomorphic footprint on the hillsides. Landslide activity considerably increased since the Last Glacial...

Environmental audio recordings are a rich and underexploited source of rainfall events. Widespread surveillance cameras continuously record rainfall information, which provides a basis for the possibility of rainfall monitoring. In this study, using surveillance audio as input, an automatic rainfall level classification system was built. Through ra...

The widespread use of surveillance cameras has become an emerging means for rainfall observations. With the advantages of high spatial-temporal resolution, rainfall information obtained from surveillance videos is highly suitable for meteorological-related research and has bright prospects. However, due to the complex and variable monitoring scenar...

Landslides and bedload transport can be a threat to people, infrastructure, and vegetation. Many detailed hydrometeorological trigger mechanisms of such natural hazards are still poorly understood. This is in particular valid concerning hail as a trigger of these processes. Therefore, this study aims to determine the influence of hail on landslides...

The reliability of input data to be used within statistically based landslide susceptibility models usually determines the quality of the resulting maps. For very large territories, landslide susceptibility assessments are commonly built upon spatially incomplete and positionally inaccurate landslide information. The unavailability of flawless inpu...

China is one of the countries where landslides caused the most fatalities in the last decades. The threat that landslide disasters pose to people might even be greater in the future, due to climate change and the increasing urbanization of mountainous areas. A reliable national-scale rainfall induced landslide susceptibility model is therefore of g...

The d-factor for the "Antecedent Daily Rainfall" index definition represents an estimate of the effect of soil moisture drainage in the antecedent period to landslide occurrence. To determine the d-factor, two techniques were adopted in this paper for identifying the most performing one in view of the definition of rainfall thresholds based on rain...

Proglacial slopes provide suitable conditions to observe the co-development of abiotic and biotic systems. The frequency and magnitude of geomorphic processes and composition of plants govern this interplay, which is described in the biogeormorphic feedback window for glacier forelands. The study sets out to quantify small-scale sediment transport...

Slow-moving landslides play an important role in both theoretical slope evolution and practical landslide hazard and risk research. Related dynamics therefore are of major interest, including the investigation of surficial changes. Yet, very slow process rates imped their quantitative analysis over short time periods, the actual change not uncommon...

Proglacial slopes provide suitable conditions for observing co‐development of abiotic and biotic systems. The frequency and magnitude of geomorphic processes and plant composition govern this interplay, which is described in the model of biogeomorphic succession. In high mountain environments, this model has only been tested in a limited number of...

Displacement predictions are essential to landslide early warning systems establishment. Most existing prediction methods are focused on finding an individual model that provides a better result. However, the limitation of generalization that is inherent in all models makes it difficult for an individual model to predict different cases accurately....

Landslides result in a significant number of casualties every year in China. The frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation are expected to increase due to climate change, leading to a change in landslide occurrence. This study focuses on climate change impacts on event rainfall characteristics that are commonly linked to landslide occurrence...

This paper proposes a review of existing strategies and tools aiming at facilitating the operationalization of the concept of resilience into built environments. In a context of climate change, increased risks in urban areas and growing uncertainties, urban managers are forced to innovate in order to design appropriate risk management strategies. A...

Subaerial landslides can generate impulse waves in reservoirs, fjords, and other water bodies and cause severe damage to the shipping industry, infrastructure, and human communities along the shorelines. Compared with deterministic hazard models, probabilistic hazard analysis is an important tool for assessing the intensity and exceedance probabili...

Climate change threatens coastal areas, posing significant risks to natural and human systems, including coastal erosion and inundation. This paper presents a multi-risk approach integrating multiple climate-related hazards and exposure and vulnerability factors across different spatial units and temporal scales. The multi-hazard assessment employs...

The aim of most data-driven landslide susceptibility assessments is to generate a map that depicts zones that are prone to future landsliding. The underlying algorithms are usually trained on the basis of a dichotomous response (i.e. landslide presences and absences) and a predictor set that includes derivatives of a digital terrain model (DTM). Li...

The Himalayan range is one of the most tectonically active mountain ranges on Earth. The Jilong Valley is a deeply-dissected canyon in the Chinese Himalayas in Tibet, and in this valley, landslide hazard and risk have increased significantly in response to active crustal movements, intense rainfall and ever-increasing human interference. Landslide...

Lockergesteinsrutschungen und Hangmuren werden charakterisiert und in den Grundfunktionen anhand einzelner Beispiele beschrieben. Der Bezug zu Extremereignissen wird über die Prozessdimension (z.B. Fläche, Volumen, Geschwindigkeit) und/oder den möglichen Konsequenzen hergestellt. Historische Informationen sind sehr Lückenhaft und reflektieren nicht...

Abstract: Impulse waves generated by landslides are a potential major hazard for the operation of hydropower reservoirs, as they pose a serious threat to the dam, to residents and to properties along the shoreline. A number of experimental studies have been conducted based on generalized models to predict the wave characteristics, but using the res...

The data article provided time series of water surface elevation and wave parameters of landslide generated impulse waves affected by reservoir geometry. Two types of generalized reservoir geometries were investigated by the numerical method of Tsunami Squares-converging reservoir geometries and diverging reservoir geometries. 14 numerical reservoi...

Shallow landslide processes in geologically prone areas are recognised to pose threat to both human life and property. As precipitation is one of the main triggers for landslides, hydro-meteorological interrelationships and related future changes regarding frequency and magnitude of landslide processes in particular are of major interest. Long-term...

In order to reach the designated final water level of 175 m, there were three impoundment stages in the Three Gorges Reservoir, with water levels of 135 m, 156 m and 175 m. Baishuihe landslide in the Reservoir was chosen to analyze its displacement characteristics and displacement variability at the different stages. Based on monitoring data, the l...

Landslides result in severe casualties every year in China. An increase in extreme precipitation in China has been found, and the areas experiencing unusually extreme precipitation are also expanding due to climate changes. This leads to a change of landslide occurrence due to climate change. We try to assess the future change of landslide occurren...

Despite the importance of land cover on landscape hydrology and slope stability, the representation of land cover dynamics in physically based models and their associated ecohydrological effects on slope stability is rather scarce. In this study, we assess the impact of different levels of complexity in land cover parameterisation on the explanator...

Previous research highlights that not only the input data quality, but also the applied classification technique affects substantially the results and the feasibility of subsequent landslide susceptibility analyses. The interplay between error-prone input data and the adapted classification algorithm (i.e. overfitting to errors inherent in the data...

Landslides can lead to loss of life as well as damages to public infrastructure and private property. Particularly processes with high velocities and energies, such as falls and flows (according to Cruden and Varnes), are highly dangerous. Therefore, adequate risk management strategies are necessary to reduce negative consequences of such processes...

Although commonly triggered by heavy or long-lasting precipitation events, landslides in clay-rich formations are hardly predictable as their triggering mechanisms are still not fully understood. Hence, detailed information about the internal structure of landslides with high spatial resolution is fundamental for an improved understanding of trigge...

Landslide forecasting and early warning has a long tradition in landslide research and is primarily carried out based on empirical and statistical approaches, e.g., landslide-triggering rainfall thresholds. In the last decade, flood forecasting started the operational mode of so-called ensemble prediction systems following the success of the use of...

Landslide-triggering thresholds vary over space and time, in the line with spatiotemporal changes of lithology, topography, climate, hydrology, soil and vegetation conditions. In this proposal, analysis of spatial distribution of landslide-triggering rainfall thresholds in Lower Austria and Vienna is presented. Spatial variability of thresholds sho...

Crucial to most landslide early warning system (EWS) is the precise prediction of rainfall in space and time. Researchers are aware of the importance of the spatial variability of rainfall in landslide studies. Commonly, however, it is neglected by implementing simplified approaches (e.g. representative rain gauges for an entire area). With spatial...

Several studies highlight that the selection of a specific landslide sampling strategy affects the outcome of a subsequent statistical susceptibility model. Various approaches have been proposed in order to represent past landslides within grid-based models. In fact, most published models are fitted with morphometric explanatory variables that spec...

A number of studies highlight that the explanatory power of a statistical landslide susceptibility model is conditional on a truthful spatial representation of past landslide occurrences. However, landslide inventories are often incomplete and subject to known or unknown systematic errors. We assume that ignoring such common landslide inventory bia...

For many years it is under debate, if climate change affects landslide occurrence, either as first-time failure or within reactivation. Some argue that other factors such as land-use change and human modification of slopes are much more important than climate change, others investigated that extreme triggering events increased within the last years...

On the regional scale, investigations on future landslide can broadly be distinguished in spatial or temporal analyses, i.e. landslide susceptibility or hazard maps, and landslide triggering rainfall thresholds. Even though both approaches have its uses e.g. in spatial planning, risk management and early warning, they also have limitations. Suscept...

Estimation of the residual strength of the soil on the landslide sliding surface is essential for analyzing reactivated landslides. This study investigated the influence of over-consolidation ratio (OCR) and shear rate on the residual strength of SM-type (silty sand) landslide soils in the Three Gorge Reservoir using ring shear tests under drained...

Landslide early warning has a long tradition in landslide research. Early warning can be defined as the provision of timely and effective information that allows individuals exposed to a hazard to take action to avoid or reduce their risk and 10 prepare for effective response. In the last decade, hydrological forecasting started operational mode of...

Klimarelevante Naturgefahren sind auf vielfältige Faktoren zurückzuführen, deren Zusammenwirken in der Gesamtheit betrachtet werden muss. Die vorbereitenden, auslösenden und kontrollierenden Faktoren werden in unterschiedlichster Weise vom Klimawandel beeinflusst. Die Autoren beschreiben beobachtete Trends und Projektionen zu Dürre, Waldbränden, gr...

Viele der im Bevölkerungsschutzsystem verwendeten Begriffe wie z. B. „Notfall“, „Krise“ und „Katastrophe“, aber auch „Gefahr“, „Risiko“ und „Sicherheit“ werden von den beteiligten Akteuren unterschiedlich verstanden und verwendet. Die einzelnen wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen, aber auch Behörden und Institutionen haben eine eigene Fachterminologie,...

Multi-temporal landslide inventories in widely forested landscapes are scarce and further studies are required to face the challenges of producing reliable inventories in woodland areas. An elaboration of valuable empirical relationships between shallow landslides and forest cover based on recent remote sensing data alone is often hampered due to c...

Landslide susceptibility maps are frequently produced by fitting multiple variable statistical models that generate a relationship between a binary response variable (presence and absence of past landslides) and a set of predisposing environmental factors. Within this study, we investigated the hypothesis that an inclusion of a high portion of " tr...

Spatially distributed physically based slope stability models are commonly used to assess landslide susceptibility of hillslope environments. Several of these models are able to account for vegetation related effects, such as evapotranspiration, interception and root cohesion, when assessing slope stability. However, particularly spatial informatio...

Numerous publications that addressing landslide susceptibility were published over the past decades, also due to an increasing demand of spatial information regarding potentially endangered areas. However, studies that provide an overview on landslide susceptibility at national scale are still scarce. This research presents a first attempt to gener...

The precise prediction of rainfall in space and time is a key element to most landslide early warning systems. Unfortunately, the spatial variability of rainfall in many early warning applications is often disregarded. A common simplification is to use uniformly distributed rainfall to characterize aerial rainfall intensity. With spatially differen...

In statistical landslide susceptibility modelling, topographic conditions are frequently extracted from DTM derivatives, which represent the topography after landslide occurrence. However, areas where future landslides will occur do not yet exhibit such a distinct post-failure morphology. This study investigates… …whether and how models based on po...

Albeit tree root systems are capable to reinforce soils on hillslopes and hold the potential to increase slope stability, the influence of root reinforcement is often disregarded in 2.5D- or 3D-slip surface models. In this study, we intend to improve the parameterisation of root reinforcement by analysing the effects of various root system types on...

The kinetic energy of landslides highly influences the growth structure of tree stems and thus causes the development of reaction wood in the xylem. Most studies focus on assessing the reaction wood development in conifers. However, the response of hardwood species (e.g. beech - Fagus sylvatica L. and birch - Betula pendula L.) on external mechanic...

Complete landslide inventories are rarely available. The objectives of this study were to (i) elaborate the influence of incomplete landslide inventories on statistical landslide susceptibility models and to (ii) propose suitable modelling strategies that can reduce the effects of inventory-based incompleteness. In this context, we examined whether...

Hydrologically triggered shallow landslides are a frequent natural hazard in the Eastern Alps and can cause severe damages to agriculturally used land, houses and infrastructure. Geomorphometric indices allow to estimate the spatial dynamics of shallow landslides based on recurrent landslide inventories. Previous studies found that the morphology o...

Proglacial icings are extrusive ice bodies which form during winter when water emerges to the surface and freezes under sub-zero atmospheric temperatures. They have long been interpreted as evidence for warm-based polythermal glacial conditions that release subglacial water throughout the year. However, icings can also be found in front of cold-bas...

Vulnerability assessment, as a component of the consequence analysis, represents a fundamental stage in the risk assessment process because it relates the hazard intensity to the characteristics of the built environment that make it susceptible to damage and loss. The objective of this work is to develop a quantitative methodology for vulnerability...

Albeit advancements in the past within the field of geotechnical engineering have led to an increasing in situ damage control in many parts of the world, heavy rainstorms still cause severe damage by triggering landslides. Landslides are usually restricted to the local scale when taking into consideration single events, however, they often tend to...