Use of USGS earth science products by city planning agencies in the San Francisco Bay region, California

Goals, strategies, priorities, and tasks of a national landslide hazard-reduction program

“…On the other extreme, if the users do not become proficient in interpreting and applying technical information, the information is likely to be misused or not used in the decisionmaking process. Kockelman (1975Kockelman ( , 1976bKockelman ( , 1979 reported interviews with 91 city planning staffs, 8 county planning staffs, and 7 selected regional agencies in the San Francisco Bay region. For the cities and counties, only a few staff members had any training in earth sciences or engineering.…”

“…Some of these services are already being provided through cooperative agreements, map-sales offices, geologic-inquiries staff, public inquiries offices, and ordinary day-to-day contacts with the public by the producers of landslide-hazard information. In addition, many research workers have provided such services on a limited and informal basis (Kockelman, 1975(Kockelman, , 1976a(Kockelman, , 1976b(Kockelman, , 1979. Some Survey scientists involved in the urban area studies have spent between 20 and 50 percent of their time working with users .…”

“…The evaluation will be helpful, even necessary, to the funding, producing, and using agencies. Sponsors of similar hazard-reduction programs designed for planners and decisionmakers have performed self-evaluations on the usefulness of the programs (A. D. Little, Inc. 1975;Kockelman 1975Kockelman , 1976bKockelman , 1979Kockelman , and 1980Downing, 1978;Wissel and others, 1976). Production and communication of any landslide hazard information is a prerequisite to any inventory of its uses or interviews with its users; therefore, the following tasks must await the initiation or completion of most of the proceeding tasks: Analyze uses and problems and suggest improvements to the information or to the communication techniques…”

Relative slope stability and land-use planning in the San Francisco Bay region, California

“…Except for the detailed maps of small areas and the San Mateo County map (Brabb and others, 1972), general maps of relative slope stability that cover large areas have not been available for regional land-use and planning studies in the bay area. Preliminary evaluations by Kockelman (1975Kockelman ( , 1976 indicate widespread use of almost all recent U.S. Geological Survey publications related to landsliding and slope stability. Several maps have formed the basis for land-use planning decisions.…”

Examples of the use of geologic and seismologic information for earthquake-hazard reduction in Southern California

“…Similar examples of the use of geologic and seismologic information are reported elsewhere (Kockelman, 1975(Kockelman, , 1976(Kockelman, , 1979 ANTICIPATING DAMAGE TO CRITICAL FACILITIES* For purposes of assessing the impact of a major future earthquake, scenarios are used. Although a scenario is usually thought of as a synopsis or outline of a play or movie, a scenario for an earthquake can be considered a synopsis or outline of a large seismic event and its severe impacts on an urban region.…”