Evaluating root strength index as an indicator of landslide-prone slopes in eastern kentucky

Considering stabilizing effects of vegetation may improve landslide susceptibility analysis, but deriving metrics such as root strength is slow and difficult to accomplish at regional scales. A lidar-derived root strength index (RSTI) may serve as a proxy for regional root strength estimates but has not been widely leveraged in statistics-based landslide susceptibility modeling, nor has it been implemented without time-intensive ground-truthing. Landslides (n=1086 documented) triggered by record precipitation in July 2022 in eastern Kentucky provided a unique opportunity to incorporate a purely GIS-derived estimate of RSTI due to the availability of high-resolution, pre-failure lidar data. During this event, landslides predominantly originated on or immediately downslope of areas where RSTI was relatively low. Most (83.2%) landslides occurred where mean RSTI is 12°. Slopes