PASADENA (CNS) – An analysis measuring the movement of slow-moving landslides on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County found that land in the residential area slid toward the ocean by as much as 4 inches (10 centimeters) per week in the fall of 2024, NASA officials announced Friday.
The movement of land was accelerated and the active area expanded as a result of record-breaking rainfall in 2023, as well as heavy rains the L.A. region experienced in early 2024, according to researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“In effect, we’re seeing that the footprint of land experiencing significant impacts has expanded, and the speed is more than enough to put human life and infrastructure at risk,” Alexander Handwerger, the JPL landslide scientist who performed the analysis, said in a statement.
Researchers used data from an airborne radar for their study.
Parts of the peninsula are part of what researchers described as an “ancient complex of landslides” that has been moving for at least six decades, and affecting hundreds of buildings in local communities.
The JPL team created a map to show the active zone using data from four flights of its Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar between September and October 2024.
The UAVSAR instrument was mounted to a jet and flown out of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The four flights were planned to estimate the speed and direction of the landslides in three dimensions.
NASA sent the data to state officials in an effort to help the state respond to the landslides. The information was made available to the public and can be found at bit.ly/42D5JCT.
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