How a UO professor is working to make landslides predictable as weather

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - Scientists are studying around the globe to predict where and when disasters like landslides are most likely to happen, led in part by research at the University of Oregon.

“Susceptibility is the biggest thing. Where are slopes that are susceptible and where does that relate to where folks live?” said Josh Roering, an Earth Sciences professor at UO.

He grew up in the flat landscape of Minnesota, but his whole life, he was drawn to mountains and the earth beneath them.

“It’s so close to us. We can watch it, we can observe it, we can see it change,” he said. “But just feet below the surface - the soil, the rocks, all these things are really complicated.”

Now, he’s living his dream. He’s a key figure in the Center for Land Surface Hazards - ‘CLaSH,’ a coalition th