**Minu Treesa Abraham \*, Deekshith Pothuraju and Neelima Satyam**

Discipline of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Indore, Bhopal 452020, Madhya Pradesh, India; deekshithpothuraju16@gmail.com (D.P.); neelima.satyam@gmail.com (N.S.)

**\*** Correspondence: minunalloor@gmail.com

Received: 29 August 2019; Accepted: 9 October 2019; Published: 11 October 2019

**Abstract:** Idukki is a South Indian district in the state of Kerala, which is highly susceptible to landslides. This hilly area which is a hub of a wide variety of flora and fauna, has been suffering from slope stability issues due to heavy rainfall. A well-established landslide early warning system for the region is the need of the hour, considering the recent landslide disasters in 2018 and 2019. This study is an attempt to define a regional scale rainfall threshold for landslide occurrence in Idukki district, as the first step of establishing a landslide early warning system. Using the rainfall and landslide database from 2010 to 2018, an intensity-duration threshold was derived as I = 0.9D−0.16 for the Idukki district. The effect of antecedent rainfall conditions in triggering landslide events was explored in detail using cumulative rainfalls of 3 days, 10 days, 20 days, 30 days, and 40 days prior to failure. As the number of days prior to landslide increases, the distribution of landslide events shifts towards antecedent rainfall conditions. The biasness increased from 72.12% to 99.56% when the number of days was increased from 3 to 40. The derived equations can be used along with a rainfall forecasting system for landslide early warning in the study region.

**Keywords:** rainfall thresholds; landslides; Idukki; early warning system
