SELF-ORGANIZED CRITICALITY IN A LANDSLIDE MODEL

From landslide mapping it is known that the frequency of landslide occ urence as a function of their magnitude can be described by a power la w in many regions. In order to investigate the magnitude distribution of landslides from a theoretical point of view, we present a physicall y based landslide model combining aspects of slope stability and mass movement. If the long term driving processes (fluvial or tectonic) are integrated, the model shows self-organized criticality (SOC). The res ults coincide with results obtained from landslide mapping, so that ou r model suggests that landsliding may be seen as a SOC process. In con trast to other models showing SOC that are mostly based on cellular au tomata, our model is based on partial differential equations. The resu lts show that SOC is not a fashion of cellular automata, but can also occur in differential equation models.