Version 3.0 of the landslide inventory for the Mw 7.8 14 November 2016, Kaikōura Earthquake, New Zealand

This project contains version 3.0 of the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake landslide inventory. The Mw 7.8 14 November 2016 Kaikoura earthquake generated many thousands of landslides. Following the earthquake the co-seismic landslides were mapped manually in a GIS environment using high resolution aerial photography. Version 3.0 of the inventory published here contains 31,623 landslide source area polygons and 26,559 debris trail polygons. The number of debris polygons is lower than the number of source areas because many debris polygons have a many to one relationship with the source areas. No attempt has been made to link the debris polygons to the source areas in this release.

Version 3.0 contains:
• The landslide source areas and debris trail mapped separately as polygons.
• All the mapped landslides from versions 1.0 and 2.0 of the inventory, which have been modified where necessary, along with additional landslides mapped from the high-resolution aerial photographs.
• The large, slow moving landslides identified by: Cao, Y., Hamling, I., Massey, C., & Upton, P. (2023). Slow‐Moving Landslides Triggered by the 2016 Mw 7.8 Kaikōura Earthquake, New Zealand: A New InSAR Phase‐Gradient Based Time‐Series Approach. Geophysical Research Letters, 50(4), e2022GL102064.

Version 3.0 does not contain:
• All the smaller landslides (with source areas typically <500 m2) that were triggered by the earthquake, as differentiating such small landslides remains difficult and time-consuming.

Version 3.0 of the inventory data is published is in GIS Shapefile format with polygons that represent the mapped landslide source areas and debris trails which are thought to have been triggered by this earthquake. The data are projected in the NZGD_2000_New_Zealand_Transverse_Mercator Coordinate System. The data is also published is in CSV format with additional attributes of the landslide source areas, including the geology (GeolCode) and volume estimates of source area volume for the majority of the source areas.

For more information about how the source volumes estimates were derived, see: Jones. K.E., Howarth, J.D., Massey, C.I., Luković, B., Sirguey, P., Singeisen, C., Gasston, C., R. Morgenstern, R., Ries, W. 2025. An alternative to landslide area-volume scaling relationships: an ensemble approach adopting a difference model to estimate the total volume of landsliding triggered by the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, New Zealand. Landslides. https://10.1007/s10346-025-02479-x

Version 3.0 of the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake landslide inventory should be cited as: Jones, K., Massey, C. Townsend, D. Rosser, B. Morgenstern, R., Lukovic, B., Davidson, J., Lyndsell, B., Singeisen, C., Tamsen, D., Carey, J., Villeneuve, M., Mason, D., Wolter, A., Gasston, C., (2024). Version 3.0 of the landslide inventory for the Mw 7.8 14 November 2016, Kaikōura Earthquake [Data set]. GNS Science. https://doi.org/10.21420/WX2X-H603?x=y

The two earlier versions of the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake landslide inventory, published as separate projects on DesignSafe, are summarised below:

The Version 1.0 landslide inventory contains 10,195 hand-digitised landslides and was completed in August 2017. This version contained mainly the larger landslides (with source areas >10,000 m2) triggered by the earthquake and mapping using satellite imagery captured immediately after the earthquake. Version 1.0 of the inventory data is published in CSV format with points that represent the centroids of the mapped landslide source areas thought to have been triggered by this earthquake

The Version 2.0 inventory contains 29,557 hand-digitised landslides and was completed in August 2019. Version 2.0 contains all landslides from Version 1.0 – which were modified where necessary – plus additional landslides (with source areas mainly <10,000 m2) mapped from high-resolution aerial photography. Whilst Version 2.0 contains significantly more landslides than the Version 1.0 inventory, it does not contain all the smaller landslides (with source areas typically <500 m2) that were triggered by the earthquake, as differentiating such small landslides from apparent “noise” e.g., shadows, vegetation changes and other landslides was difficult and time-consuming. Version 2.0 of the inventory data is published is in both CSV format and in GIS Shapefile format with points that represent the centroids of the mapped landslide source areas thought to have been triggered by this earthquake.

The landslide mapping was carried out by experienced landslide researchers using the methodology outlined in: Massey CI, Townsend DB, Dellow GD, Lukovic B, Rosser BJ, Archibald, GC, Villeneuve M, Davidson J, Jones KE, Morgenstern R, et al. 2018. Kaikoura Earthquake Short-Term Project: landslide inventory and landslide dam assessments. Lower Hutt (NZ): GNS Science. 43 p. (GNS Science report; 2018/19). doi:10.21420/G2FP82.