NASA Radar Reveals Expanding Landslide Threat on Palos Verdes Peninsula, Los Angeles

Recent analysis of radar data from NASA has shown that an active landslide on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, a coastal area just south of Los Angeles, is expanding and accelerating. Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) used airborne radar to measure how much the land is shifting in the region, revealing that, over just a four-week period in the fall of 2024, parts of the land slid toward the ocean by up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) per week.

The Palos Verdes Peninsula has been home to a long-standing landslide complex, with portions of the land slowly moving for at least the past six decades. This landslide area has affected numerous buildings in nearby communities, but the movement has intensified in recent years, particularly after heavy rainfall during Southern California's wet season in 2023 and early 2024.

NASA’s team used data from four flights of the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) mounted on a Gulfstream III jet, based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California. The flights, which took place between September 18 and October 17, 2024, allowed scientists to track the speed and direction of the landslide’s movement in three dimensions.

Mapping the Movement: Radar Insights

The data collected from these UAVSAR flights was used to create detailed visualizations of the landslide’s activity. In the resulting images, different colors represent the speed of the movement, with the darkest reds showing the fastest-moving areas. The arrows on the map indicate the direction of horizontal motion, and solid white lines mark the boundaries of the active landslide area as defined by the California Geological Survey in 2007.

Alexander Handwerger, a JPL landslide scientist who led the analysis, noted the growing concern: “We’re seeing that the area impacted by significant landslide activity has expanded. The speed of movement is now fast enough to pose a real threat to both people and infrastructure in the region."

The new data, which also includes information from Europe’s Copernicus Sentinel-1A/B satellites, was shared with California officials to assist with emergency planning and response efforts. The information is also publicly available via NASA’s Disaster Mapping Portal.

A Future Focus on Landslides and Climate Change

Handwerger is also the principal investigator for NASA’s upcoming Landslide Climate Change Experiment, which will use similar airborne radar technology to study how extreme weather patterns—particularly heavy rain and droughts—affect landslide activity. This research will focus on coastal areas along California’s coastline, helping to understand how climate change could influence landslide risks in the future.

About ARIA and UAVSAR

The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team is a collaboration between JPL and Caltech, aiming to improve disaster response through advanced remote sensing technology. The team uses radar and optical observations, along with GPS and seismic data, to track and assess natural hazards like earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires, and landslides.

The UAVSAR instrument has been a key tool for studying natural hazards around the world since 2007, providing invaluable data on everything from glaciers to ecosystem changes, and even subsurface fluid movement. Its versatility and ability to capture detailed, high-resolution data make it an essential asset for monitoring the Earth’s dynamic processes.

For More information visit: NASA.GOV


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