• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.173-191
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• 2024

Landslides pose significant threats to many countries globally, yet the development and implementation of effective landslide early warning systems (LEWS) remain challenging due to multifaceted complexities spanning scientific, technological, and political domains. Addressing these challenges demands a holistic approach. Technologically, integrating thresholds, such as rainfall thresholds, with real-time data within accessible, open-source software stands as a promising solution for LEWS. This article introduces LandScient_EWS, a PHP-based program tailored to address this need. The software facilitates the comparison of real-time measured data, such as rainfall, with predefined landslide thresholds, enabling precise calculations and graphical representation of real-time landslide advisory levels across diverse spatial scales, including regional, basin, and hillslope levels. To illustrate its efficacy, the program was applied to a case study in Medellin, Colombia, where a rainfall event on August 26, 2008, triggered a shallow landslide. Through pre-defined rainfall intensity and duration thresholds, the software simulated advisory levels during the recorded rainfall event, utilizing data from a rain gauge positioned within a small watershed and a single grid cell (representing a hillslope) within that watershed. By identifying critical conditions that may lead to landslides in real-time scenarios, LandScient_EWS offers a new paradigm for assessing and responding to landslide hazards, thereby improving the efficiency and effectiveness of LEWS. The findings underscore the software's potential to streamline the integration of rainfall thresholds into both existing and future landslide early warning systems.

• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.55-63
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• 2013

The existing landslide warning guideline was mostly issued in 1990's and did not consider recent weather changes such as focused area heavy rainfall or regional geographic features. And every regional government applies the guideline equally which results in continued disasters. Thus it is necessary to conduct a research on landslide with regards to the correlation between the increased focused rainfall and regional geographic features. We propose a renewed emergency escape guideline against steep slope landslides that can assess most likely avalanche time according to amounts of rain and a continued raining time, for a swift escape of the residents of the affected area.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.191-196
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• 2008

This study is a case study for application of the RTI warning model to Korea which was previously developed to predict landslide potential and occurrence time during a rainfall event. The rainfall triggering index (RTI) is defined as the product of the rainfall intensity I (mm/hr) and the effective accumulated rainfall $R_t$ (mm). This index is used to evaluate the landslide and debris-flow occurrence potential at time t during a rainfall event. The upper critical value ($RTI_{UC}$) of RTI and the lower critical value ($RTI_{LC}$) of RTI can be determined by historical rainfall data of a certain area. When the rainfall intensity exceeds the upper critical value, there are high potential to occur land-slides. The analysis result can predict landslide occurrence time of an area during a rainfall event as well as land-slide potential. The result can also be used as an important data to issue early-warning of landslides. In order to apply the RTI warning model to Korea this study analyzed rainfall data and landslides data in Inje county, Gangwon province, Korea from July 13 to July 19, 2006. According to the analysis result, the rainfall intensity exceeded the upper critical value 23 hours ago, 11 hours ago, and 9 hours ago from 11:00 in the morning, July 16. Therefore, landslide warnings would be issued three times for people evacuation for avoiding or reducing hurts and dam-ages from landslides in mountainous areas of Inje.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.53-58
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• 2014

The objective of this study is to suggest rainfall threshold for landslide forecasting and warning. For this study, we chose the research area where landslide have occurred. And we performed infiltration-stability analysis with rainfall intensity-duration. As the results of this study, slope stability variation chart with rainfall intensity-duration are established. This kind of chart is believed to be able to be used for forecasting and warning the landslide caused by rainfall.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.101 no.1
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• pp.28-35
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• 2012

Rainfall is widely recognized as a major landslide-triggering factor. Most of the latest landslides that occurred in South Korea were caused by short-duration heavy rainfall. However, the relationship between rainfall characteristics and landslide occurrence is poorly understood. To examine the effect of rainfall on landslide occurrence, cumulative rainfall(mm) and rainfall intensity(mm/hr) of serial rain and antecedent rainfall(mm) were analyzed for 18 landslide events that occurred in the southern and central regions of South Korea in June and July 2011. It was found that all of these landslides occurred by heavy rainfall for one or three days, with the rainfall intensity exceeding 30 mm/hr or with a cumulative rainfall of 200 mm. These plotted data are beyond the landslide warning criteria of Korea Forest Service and the critical line of landslide occurrence for Gyeongnam Province. It was also found that the time to landslide occurrence after rainfall start(T) was shortened with the increasing average rainfall intensity(ARI), showing an exponential-decay curve, and this relation can be expressed as "T = $94.569{\cdot}exp$($-0.068{\cdot}ARI$)($R^2$=0.64, p<0.001)". The findings in this study may provide important evidences for the landslide forecasting guidance service of Korea Forest Service as well as essential data for the establishment of non-structural measures such as a warning and evacuation system in the face of sediment disasters.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.47-59
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• 2018

At present, there has been a wide range of studies on debris flow in Korea, more specifically, on rainfall characteristics that trigger debris flow including rainfall intensity, rainfall duration, and preceding rainfall. the prediction of landslide / debris flow relies on the criteria for landslide watch and warning by the Korea Forest Service (KFS, 2012). Despite this, it has been found that most incidents of debris flow were caused by rainfall above the level of landslide watch, maximum hourly rainfall, extensive damage was caused even under the watch level. Under these circumstances, we calculated a rainfall triggering index (RTI) using the main factors that trigger debris flow-rainfall, rainfall intensity, and cumulative rainfall-to design a more sophisticated watch / warning criteria than those by the KFS. The RTI was classified into attention, caution, alert, and evacuation, and was assessed through the application of two debris flow incidents that occurred in Umyeon Mountain, Seoul, and Cheongju, Inje, causing serious damage and casualties. Moreover, we reviewed the feasibility of the RTI by comparing it with the KFS's landslide watch / warning criteria (KFS, 2012).

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.03a
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• pp.1020-1025
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• 2009

Recently, unusual change of weather occurred in world wide region causes localized heavy rainfall and consequently disasters like landslide and debris flow in steep slope area. And the main factors of these disasters are rainfall and forest fire. To verify the existing landslide prediction and warning system, information about landslide and rainfall were collected for a data base system and analysed.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.507-521
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• 2016

Landslides are one of the most common natural hazards causing significant damage and casualties every year. In Korea, the increasing trend in landslide occurrence in recent decades, caused by climate change, has set off an alarm for researchers to find more reliable methods for landslide prediction. Therefore, an accurate landslide-susceptibility assessment is fundamental for preventing landslides and minimizing damages. However, analyzing the stability of a natural slope is not an easy task because it depends on numerous factors such as those related to vegetation, soil properties, soil moisture distribution, the amount and duration of rainfall, earthquakes, etc. A variety of different methods and techniques for evaluating landslide susceptibility have been proposed, but up to now no specific method or technique has been accepted as the standard method because it is very difficult to assess different methods with entirely different intrinsic and extrinsic data. Landslide prediction methods can fall into three categories: empirical, statistical, and physical approaches. This paper reviews previous research and surveys three groups of landslide prediction methods.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.235-250
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• 2016

In Korea, 70% of the annual rainfall falls in summer, and the number of days of extreme rainfall (over 200 mm) is increasing over time. Because rainfall is the most important trigger of landslides, it is necessary to decide a rainfall threshold for landslide warning and to develop a landslide warning model. This study selected 12 study areas that contained landslides with exactly known triggering times and locations, and also rainfall data. The feasibility of applying a Rainfall Triggering Index (RTI) to Korea is analyzed, and three RTI models that consider different time units for rainfall intensity are compared. The analyses show that the 60-minute RTI model failed to predict landslides in three of the study areas, while both the 30- and 10-minute RTI models gave successful predictions for all of the study areas. Each RTI model showed different mean response times to landslide warning: 4.04 hours in the 60-minute RTI model, 6.08 hours in the 30-minute RTI model, and 9.15 hours in the 10-minute RTI model. Longer response times to landslides were possible using models that considered rainfall intensity for shorter periods of time. Considering the large variations in rainfall intensity that may occur within short periods in Korea, it is possible to increase the accuracy of prediction, and thereby improve the early warning of landslides, using a RTI model that considers rainfall intensity for periods of less than 1 hour.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.191-201
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• 2013

Landslide in Korea occurs generally in summer, and rainfall is a major factor to trigger landslides. This study evaluates the applicability of radar rainfall to estimate landslide occurs locally in mountainous area. Temporal changes in spatial distribution of rainfall is analyzed using radar data, and the characteristics of rainfall in landslide area during the landslide occurred in Inje, July 2006. This study shows radar rainfall field can estimate local landslides more precisely than the rainfall data from ground gauges.