Landslide risk reduction measures: A review of practices and challenges for the tropics

Abstract

The overall objective of this review is to gain insights into landslide risk reduction measures that are applied or recommended in tropical landslide-prone countries, and the challenges at play. More specifically, this review aims to (i) presenting an overview of recent studies on landslides and landslide risk reduction in these countries, (ii) exploring the factors controlling the publication output on landslides and landslide risk reduction, (iii) reviewing the various landslide risk reduction measures recommended and implemented, and (iv) identifying the bottlenecks for the implementation of these strategies. A compilation of recommended and implemented landslide risk reduction measures in 99 landslide-prone tropical countries was made, based on an extensive review of scientific literature (382 publications). The documented measures are analysed using a scheme of risk reduction measures that combines classifications of the Hyogo Framework for Action and the SafeLand project. Our literature review shows that the factors influencing the number of publications on landslides and landslide risk reduction per country are (in order of importance) the absolute physical exposure of people to landslides, the population number and the Human Development Index of a country. The ratio of publications on landslide risk reduction versus publications on landslides for landslide-prone tropical countries does not vary much between these countries (average: 0.28). A significant fraction (0.30) of all known landslide hazard reduction measures are neither implemented nor recommended according to our review. The most recommended landslide risk reduction component is ‘risk management and vulnerability reduction’ (0.38). However, the most implemented component is ‘risk assessment’ (0.57). Overall, the ratio of implemented versus recommended landslide risk reduction measures in the tropics is low (<0.50) for most landslide risk reduction components, except for ‘risk assessment’ (3.01). The most cited bottlenecks for implementing landslide risk reduction measures are scientific (0.30) and political (0.29) in nature.