Landslide Research
Dear Editor: The Sitka Sound Science Center is working collaboratively with a team of researchers and local agencies on landslide research. Part of the team developing a landslide warning system came to town last week and, thanks to the interest and involvement from the community, designing Sitka’s landslide warning system is well underway. We are one year into our three-year project.
This three-year project is funded by the National Science Foundation and is being conducted in conjunction with the University of Oregon, the RAND Corporation, University of Southern California, Sitka Tribe of Alaska, and Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, and in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service, the National Weather Service, and the. U.S. Geological Survey.
Last Wednesday, with participants from the City of Sitka, SEARHC, Sitka Tribe of Alaska, U.S. Forest Service, Sitka Public Schools, Grace Harbor Church, Sitka School District, University of Alaska Southeast, National Weather Service, Silver Bay Seafoods, Raven Radio, White’s Inc, NSRAA, Search and Rescue, Red Cross, the Sitka Sound Science Center, and individuals from the commercial fishing community, a workshop was held to get further perspective on how a landslide warning system may benefit our community and steps to take to get there.
We owe a tremendous amount of thanks to all participants who took time from their regular work week to provide feedback and think about landslide issues. Thank you also to the Sitka Sentinel for promoting the public events and to KCAW for their news and talk shows. We are also grateful that Sen. Lisa Murkowski took time to pop in on the workshop and discuss the federal government’s involvement in sustaining the system by helping to maintain the data collected after the National Science Foundation funding is over.
Additional thanks to the City and Borough of Sitka and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska – the police chief, fire chief, city administrator, special projects manager, and STA’s resource protection director and cultural coordinator, who met with the researchers individually throughout the week. Sitka Tribe of Alaska also hosted a dinner and work session on the research.
We are also grateful to the Backdoor Café and the Mean Queen for hosting informal times over coffee and pizza when citizens could ask questions to the researchers. These were wonderful opportunities for researchers to address some misconceptions about landslides and to hear from citizens about their concerns and their knowledge.
The landslide warning system project has three elements: a geoscience component that is focusing on developing a new low-cost network of soil moisture sensors with the goal of providing the National Weather Service additional tools to give more accurate warnings and advisories; a social science component that is aimed at gaining a better understanding of our social connections (both formal and informal) so that no one misses a warning; a risk management component that is developing a tool that will help the community select a threshold for issuing a landslide warning.
We are pleased that the National Weather Service is so engaged in this project and that the U.S. Geological Survey has made Sitka one of four cities (the others are San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle) they are working with to monitor soils as part of their National Landslide Hazards Program.
Cora Siebert,
Geoscience Coordinator,
Sitka Sound Science Center
Correction
A Page 1 story about the city budget in Friday’s Sentinel had an incorrect title for Melissa Haley. She is city controller.
The Sentinel regrets the error.
