US Landslide Risk Falls Hardest on the Poorest Communities, Study Finds

Landslides in the United States cause billions of dollars in damage and kill dozens of people each year. A new study, published July 29 in the journal Earth's Future, is among the first to map the socioeconomics of who lives with landslide hazards nationwide — and finds that people in the most landslide-prone areas are often the least able to move away or reduce their risk.

Researchers overlaid maps of landslide susceptibility — how likely a landslide is at a given spot — with home locations and socioeconomic status. They found at least 6.5 million people in the U.S. live in high-risk landslide zones, a conservative estimate; adding medium-risk areas raises the count by millions more, matching preliminary estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Geotechnical engineer Joe Wartman of the University of Washington and colleagues found the highest risk where dense populations meet steep slopes.

Appalachia proved the worst-hit region: at least 3.6 million people there live in landslide-prone areas, 55 percent of the national total, including a high concentration of lower-income residents. Heavy rain keeps the steep valleys lush, and communities live on the slopes or in valley floors where landslide debris collects. In West Virginia, 20 percent of the population lives in high-risk areas, versus a 2 percent national average. By contrast, residents of high-risk zones in cities like Los Angeles and Seattle — among at least 1.7 million people exposed on the West Coast — are more often wealthy, with greater access to engineering fixes or the means to rebuild after disasters.

Landslide mapping itself faces pushback: some property owners and industries oppose it, fearing that identifying hazards would lower property values. Lobbying halted North Carolina's statewide landslide mapping effort in 2011, leaving it inactive for six years; the state was still catching up when Hurricane Helene struck in 2024, triggering more than 9,400 landslides, mostly in North Carolina, according to the USGS.