Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

The IPL project No 210, titled “Massive landsliding in Serbia following Cyclone Tamara in May 2014”, started in March 2016. The study area is located in the Western and Central part of the Republic of Serbia territory affected by Cyclone Tamara in May 2014. The project aims to summarize and analyse all collected relevant data, including historic and current rainfall, landslide records, aftermath reports, and environmental features datasets from the May 2014 sequence. Objectives of the proposed project include: collecting all available and acquired landslide data, analysing the trigger/landslide relation in a feasible time span and in the May 2014 event, relating the landslide mechanisms and magnitudes versus the trigger, identifying spatial patterns and relationships between landslides and geological and environmental controls, proposing an overview susceptibility map of the event and numerical modelling of the site-specific location and landslide mechanisms. The Project will be organized by University of Belgrade, Faculty of Mining and Geology and Faculty of Civil Engineering. Project beneficiaries are local community and local and regional authorities. In this paper we will present preliminary results of the proposed project targets performed by project participants.

This chapter provides a general account of the contributions of the ICL community to the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. By addressing the particular thematic issue of “Landslides and Society”, the ICL group is committed to face the big challenge of developing linkages between landslide science and decision making and practice. The chapter introduces all articles contained within this special issue. Some of the contributions of this suite of papers have hinted at additional challenges that need to be further addressed through the establishment of linkages between landslide science and policy making and practice.

In Portugal, social impacts caused by landslides occurred in the period 1865–2015 are gathered in the DISASTER database. This database includes social consequences (fatalities, injuries, missing people, evacuated people and homeless people) caused by landslides documented in newspapers. The DISASTER database contains 291 damaging landslides that caused 238 fatalities. In this work we aim to: (i) analyse the spatio-temporal analysis of damaging landslides occurred in the last 150 years; (ii) analyse the frequency and the temporal evolution of fatal landslides; (iii) analyse the spatio-temporal distribution of landslide fatalities; (iv) identify the most deadly landside types; (v) verify gender tendencies in landslide mortality; and (vi) evaluate the individual and societal risk. Individual risk is evaluated computing mortality rates for landslides, which are calculated based on the annual average population and the annual average of fatalities. The societal risk is evaluated by plotting the annual frequency of landslide cases that generated fatalities. The results demonstrate the absence of any exponential growth in time of both landslide cases and landslide mortality in Portugal. The highest number of landslide cases and related mortalities occurred in the period of 1935–1969 in relation to very wet years. Most of landslide fatalities mainly occurred in the north of the Tagus valley where the geologic and geomorphologic conditions are more prone to landslides. The Lisbon area registered a mortality hotspot, which is explained by natural conditions combined with the high exposure of population to landslide risk. Falls and flows were responsible for the highest number of fatalities associated with landslides. Males were found to have the highest frequency of fatalities. In conclusion, the spatial patterns of landslide mortality can be related to the unequal distribution of predisposing conditions to landslides, changes in the land use and exposure and social vulnerability to landslide hazards.

The State-Funded Landslide Project (SFLP) is a national program to systematically assess landslide susceptibility, hazard and risk for all of prone areas in Vietnam. Under this SFLP, in the first phase of SFLP (2012–2014), activities of landslide inventory mapping were implemented over the fourteen Northern mountainous provinces. As the achievements, 10,149 historic landslides were mapped by field surveys and 9405 locations with landslide signs were interpreted from air-photos and analysis of 3D relief. Approximately 83% of the surveyed landslides locate in accessible areas, with small and medium dimensions and partly as a result of the slope cuts. About 76% of the interpreted landslides locate in inaccessible areas, and only 24% of the interpreted locate in accessible areas, of which 65% were found active landslides at the time of surveying, naturally occurred with large dimensions. However, the inventory exposes some major drawbacks: (1) The unavailability of multi-date air-photos; (2) The lack of human resources with enough experiences in image interpretation; (3) The difficulties of verifying the interpreted landslides, especially for the inaccessible sites; (4) Few or no sources of historic information due to the isolated sites or little memory of small or medium size events; (5) No updates developed by the surveyors after they finished their tasks. Those drawbacks can lead to the insufficiency of adequate data on the types, sizes and characteristics of the slope failures, especially the exact dates of occurrences. Despite of those difficulties, the achieved inventory database have been updated and then used as basic input for the susceptibility and hazard mapping as well as preliminary results of SFLP to inform the local authorities and communities about real situations of landslides in their areas.

The Petra Archaeological Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985, characterized by a spectacular geo-archaeological landscape, is also a fragile site facing a wide diversity of natural phenomena (landslides, flash floods, earthquakes) that pose a major threat to the heritage as well as to the visitors. The UNESCO Office in Amman, in partnership with the Department of Antiquities of Jordan and the Petra Archaeological Park has engaged in a long term strategy aimed at the prevention and mitigation of natural hazards at the site. Specific attention has been devoted to the case of the Petra Siq, a 1.2 km naturally formed gorge in the sandstone mountains serving as the only tourist entrance to the site, which is particularly at risk due to its narrow pathway, limited access points and recent active slope processes. Drawing on this approach, the UNESCO “Siq Stability” project has been developed to design a strategy towards prevention and mitigation of instability phenomena at the Siq of Petra. After an initial phase devoted to the reconstruction of geomorphological dynamics and monitoring of active slope processes, the current phase of the project focuses on the implementation of landslide risk mitigation measures, the capacity development of the national authorities and the development and implementation of an awareness strategy on natural hazards. Main focus has been placed on project activities undertaken, results achieved and suggestions for steps ahead, aiming to present a useful case study on the management of natural hazards applied to heritage sites leading to the conservation of a unique World Heritage property.

To understand the complex interactions between landslide risk, public and private risk awareness, including land use practices and repair and mitigation measures in a complete manner, case histories were developed and analyzed using the example of the highway network of the Lower Saxon Uplands, NW Germany. The case histories utilize datasets extracted from the German landslide database that includes information of historical and current landslide impacts, elements at risk as well as land use practices and provide an overview of spatio-temporal changes in the exposure and vulnerability to landslide hazards over the past 250 years. For the developed case histories the recorded landslide events were categorized and classified at representative sites, according to landslide types, processes, and damages as well as applied repair and mitigation measures. In a further step, data of recent landslides are compared with historical and modern mitigation measures and are correlated with concepts of risk management. As a result, it is possible to identify some complex interactions between landslide hazard, hazard awareness and damage impact. The case histories show that especially since the last 20 years public risk awareness rose due to an apparent increase in landslide frequency and magnitude at some sites. Before the 1990s landslide mitigation measures were mainly low cost prevention measures such as the removal of loose rock and vegetation, rock blasting, catch barriers, and temporal or perpetual traffic lane closure. Recently there is a shift towards the implementation of expensive mitigation measures in order to minimize landslide occurrence. Local decision makers increasingly invest in expensive long-term stabilization projects like soil anchoring, rock nailing, and steel-reinforced concrete walls.

The effectiveness of landslide risk management should be assessed to optimize the implementation of landslide risk mitigation measures. The Risk Management Index (RMI) of Cardona et al. (Disaster risk and risk management benchmarking: a methodology based on indicators at national level. IDB/IDEA Program on Indicators for Disaster Risk Management, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Manizales, p 101, ) provides useful procedures to holistically measure perceptions of risk management for natural hazards from selected actors. This paper uses Norway as a case study to present a modified RMI for surveying perceptions of landslide risk management at two time scenarios: 2015 (present) and 2050 (future), and for various administrative levels: national, county, and municipality. All survey respondents are practitioners in landslide risk management in Norway. The survey results are able to reflect some viewpoints of these experts on landslide risk management in Norway. Factors considered for assessing the future performance of landslide risk management by respondents are also studied to understand how respondents project their expectations. This paper also demonstrates how areas of improvement in landslide risk management in Norway can be identified based on the survey results. Due to limited responses, limited knowledge of respondents and the subjective nature of perceptions, the survey results are associated with uncertainties and should thus be used with care. Upon simplification of technical terms, the survey can be applied to survey public perceptions. The survey can also be regarded as a starting point for developing a common language/terminology for landslide risk management in Norway. This research activity has been funded by the Norwegian Centre of Innovation Klima 2050 (www.klima2050.no).

This paper provides insights into a new landslide hazards project which is part of a national research program on safe and sustainable transport in Germany funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). Here we report on a work in progress and present selected results of a pilot study conducted prior to the launch of the research program in 2016. The main goal of the landslide hazards project is to assess the future landslide hazard potential for the federal transport system under the influence of climate change. A federal road-related pilot study with focus on developing an approach to this type of hazard assessment was a first step in this direction. The developed approach is based upon a Geographic Information System (GIS) as mapping tool to combine a landslide susceptibility map with spatial datasets of regional climate change projections. Here we present the basic framework of this approach only, and provide information on landslide activity and climate change. This information refers to findings from three example landslide sites in Germany. The purpose of this paper is to introduce these landslide projects of German transport research against the backdrop of the existing national strategy of climate change adaptation.

Landslides are one of the most relevant geomorphological hazards in Portugal, by the high levels of people affected, destruction of assets and disruption of economic and social activities. Regarding the Portuguese territorial land use planning and emergency management, regulation, practice, prevention and risk management have been promoted in different ways. In Portugal, the areas susceptible to landslides are included in the ‘National Ecological Reserve’, which is a public utility restriction legal figure that rules the land use planning at the municipal level. In addition, the Municipal Emergency Plans include landslide susceptibility maps that are combined with the map of the exposed elements, allowing the assessment of exposure to landslides. This study is applied to the Loures municipality located to the north of Lisbon. In this municipality 621 landslides registered in a landslide inventory (rotational slides, deep-seated translational slides and shallow translational slides) that affected 1,469,577 m (0.87%) of the Loures territory. The final landslide susceptibility map shows that in Loures municipality 1347 ha are associated to a Very high landslide susceptibility and 2372 ha to High landslide susceptibility, which corresponds both to 22.1% of the entire municipality, and constitutes the larger fraction of the National Ecological Reserve, related to landslides. These areas do not present geomorphological and geotechnical suitability for building structures or infrastructures. From the civil protection and emergency management point of views 34 classes of exposed elements were identified in the municipality, with point, linear and polygonal representations. The elements at risk located in the Very High or High landslide susceptibility classes were summarized and correspond to: high voltage poles; wind turbines; transmission/reception antennas; industrial areas; water tanks; silo; gas station/tank; service area; buildings of educational institutions; worship buildings; buildings of electricity facilities; regular buildings; gas pipeline; motorways; national roads; and municipal roads.

Modern Society needs interactive public discussion to provide an effective way of focusing on hydrological hazards and their consequences. Embracing a holistic Earth system Science approach, we experiment since 2004 different stimulating educational/communicative model which emotionally involves the participants to raise awareness on the social dimension of the disaster hydrogeological risk reduction, pointing out that human behavior is the crucial factor in the degree of vulnerability and the likelihood of disasters taking place. The implementation of strategies for risk mitigation must include educational aspects, as well as economical and societal ones. Education is the bridge between knowledge and understanding and the key to raise risk perception. Children’s involvement might trigger a chain reaction that reinforce and spread the culture of risk. No matter how heavy was the rain that hit our land in the past and recent seasons, we still are not prepared. If on one hand we need to fight against worsening Global Warming that trigger extreme meteorological events, we should also work on sustainable land use and promote landscape preservation. Since science can work on improving knowledge of phenomena, technology can provide modern tool to reduce the impact of disasters, children and adults education is the flywheel to provide the change. We present here two cases selected among the wide range of educational activities that we have tested and to which more than 2,000 students and adults have participated within a period of 12 years. They include learn-by-playing, hands-on, emotional-learning activities, open questions seminars, learning paths, curiosity-driven approaches, special venues and science outreach.