Tectonics, climate and surface processes dictate the evolution of Earth’s surface topography. Topographic change in turn influences lithospheric deformation, but the temporal and spatial scales at which this feedback can be effective remains an open issue. Here, we make a synthesis of recent developments investigating how erosion impacts the stress-loading of faults and potentially induces some earthquakes. We first show, using an elastic model for the lithosphere, that erosion rates of ca 0.1–20 mm.yr−1, as documented in active compressional orogens, can raise the Coulomb stress by ca 0.1–10 bar on the nearby thrust faults over an earthquake cycle, by changing both the normal and tangential stress. This model also suggests that short-lived but intense erosional events can represent a prominent mechanism for inter-seismic stress loading of faults near the surface. Indeed, we demonstrate that typhoon Morakot in 2009, which triggered numerous landslides, was followed by a step increase in the shallow (