International Programme On Landslides Research Articles

Edition of the monthly journal Landslides in 2018 and the lists of active editors and reviewers in 2017

Monthly Journal “Landslides” was founded as the first project of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) to establish “Landslide Science” as the central activities of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). It aims to contribute to the International Strategy on Disaster Reduction (ISDR) and the Education for Sustainable Development as UNITWIN (University Twinning and Networking) Programme of UNESCO. The ICL, with support of 2017 Ljubljana Declaration by participants of the Fourth World Landslide Forum in 2017, is moving forward with the preparation of the Kyoto 2020 Commitment (KC2020) to further ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015-2025 after 2025. “Landslides” was changed from bimonthly journal to monthly journal from January 2018 to serve as a newsletter for the progress of KC2020. Categories of Landslides were modified and a new category of News/Kyoto Commitment was created. The editorial process of Landslides includes voluntary contribution from 148 editors and 1,137 reviewers as of 23 April 2018. Editors and reviewers successfully working in the editorial process and review in 2017 are appreciated for their contribution.

The Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) and IPL World Centre

The Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) and IPL World Centre

The Fifth World Landslide Forum—Implementing and Monitoring the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025

The outline of the Fifth World Landslide Forum (WLF5) was examined at the Steering Committee meeting of ICL and the launching meeting of the Organizing Committee of the Fifth World Landslide Forum was held on 5–6 March 2017 in the Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Japan. Three participants from UNESCO, one from UNISDR, one from IRDR, 12 ICL, and IPL members from abroad, and 32 Japanese members from ICL headquarters in Kyoto, Kyoto University, the Japan Landslide Society, the Japanese Geotechnical Society, and the Japan Society for Natural Disaster Science (JSNDS) attended the meeting. The general outline of WLF5 was developed in the meeting. The first organizing committee meeting of the WLF5 took place on 1 April, 2017 at the forum venue—Kyoto International Conference Center, Kyoto, Japan. The second organizing committee meeting by ICL-IPL members will take place on 29 May 2017 at the University of Ljubljana in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The upcoming WLF5, the concept of “Kyoto 2020 Commitment of the World Landslide Community” and “The 2017 Ljubljana Declaration on Landslide Risk–Contributing to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction” will be discussed at the high-level panel discussion: Strengthening Intergovernmental Network and the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) for “ISDR-ICL SENDAI PARTNERSHIPS 2015-2025 for global promotion of understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk” on 30 May 2017 during the Fourth World Landslide Forum, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The Geological and Landslides Museum of Civita di Bagnoregio (Central Italy)

The present paper reports on the activities conducted since 2008, within the International Programme on Landslides (IPL), for the realisation of the Geological and Landslides Museum of Civita di Bagnoregio (Central Italy) (IPL project 106-1). The town of Civita di Bagnoregio (Latium Region, Central Italy), located at the border of the ancient Volsini volcano and placed on a high tuff peak that rests on fragile clay, is a stunning case where the human presence has tried for centuries to hinder the natural degradation of the cliff. It is a paradigm of the men who tries to survive in a hostile environment with an incomparable beauty and nature that wants to take its course dismantling and eroding all reliefs. The Geological and Landslides Museum is a scientific institution introducing visitors to the fundamentals of landslide science, describing the site evolution through the relationship between human being and geomorphological processes in the last millennium and, finally, introducing to the “real museum” that are the ongoing landslides on the cliff and valleys. The visitors will find in the museum many scenic spots that are describing the evolution of territory but, in the meantime, they are encouraged to visit the site and to touch by hand the various geomorphological features of the site. The museum also seeks to develop a culture of resilience to landslide disasters, promoting the site as a “geomorphological park” to study and test innovative monitoring tools, for the benefit of scientific community.

Implementation of the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025 for global promotion of understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk

The ISDR-ICL SENDAI Partnerships 2015–2025 The International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) was founded on 21 January 2002 in Kyoto, Japan. The ICL proposed a thematic session on landslides to take place at the Second United Nations World Congress on Disaster Reduction (WCDR), Kobe, Japan in 2005. Based on the outcome of this session Letter of Intent 2005, the 2006 Tokyo Action Plan—strengthening research and learning on landslide and related earth system disasters for global risk preparedness was adopted at the United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan (Sassa 2006). The Tokyo Action Plan proposed the World Landslide Forum (WLF) held every 3 years, the identification of World Centres of Excellence on Landslide Risk Reduction (WCoE) at each World Landslide Forum, and the establishment of the IPL Global Promotion Committee (IPL-GPC) to manage the International Programme on Landslides (IPL), a programme of the ICL for ISDR. ICL organized a 10th Anniversary Conference on 17–20 January 2012 in Kyoto when the ICL Strategic plan 2012– 2021—To create a safer geoenvironment was adopted (Sassa 2012). At this conference, ICL examined the 2014 Beijing Declaration to be adopted by the World Landslide Forum 3 in Beijing, China, in 2014 and the draft of ICL-IPL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025 to be proposed in Sendai, Japan, in March 2015. A high-level panel discussion Initiative to create a safer geoenvironment toward WCDRR 2015 and forward was held at the Third World Landslide Forum in Beijing, 2014. Figure 1 is a group photo after the panel discussion including the Director-General of UNESCO Ms. Irina Bokova.

Limits and challenges to compiling and developing a database of glacial lake outburst floods

A unified database of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) has been created for analysis and future natural hazard evaluations. The data from individual case studies fill the database at a primary level, while the regional and global scales are more suitable for evaluating the information. There is enhanced research activity in this topic worldwide due to ongoing environmental changes, and this is apparent in the database. Database compilation is linked to the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) because different types of slope movements are the most common triggering factors for glacial lake outburst floods, and the outburst floods, on the other hand, often initiate different types of slope movements.

Scientific research for landslide risk analysis and international education for mitigation and preparedness

Scientific activities of the World Centre of Excellence on Landslide Disaster Reduction at Charles University in Prague (2011–2014) combine field research using several techniques, capacity building, and international collaboration. Through our landslide research in Peru, Ethiopia, and at several localities inside the Czech Republic, we consider the landslide phenomena as being a part of the physical-geographical sphere where all of the interactions between the lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere must be evaluated with respect to specific on-site conditions. Slope deformations are also considered as ongoing landscape changes in time and space. In some regions (e.g., in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru), landslides were studied as they occurred. In addition to progress in research methodologies, we have created a new glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) database. Doctoral candidates were involved in field research and student exchanges. Field studies also involve foreign students. Aspects of our landslide research are a matter of international collaboration in the framework of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL).

Preface for the thematic issue “Early Warning of Landslides”

Landslide risk reduction is a pressing societal need in mountainous countries and along many coasts, lakes and rivers in other areas. Engineering measures to stabilise dangerous slopes can be costly or impractical in many cases. Warning is the most economical risk-reduction measure for rapid landslides, and development of early warning systems for mitigating natural risks is a topic of much research around the world. Asian members of the International Consortium on Landslides (China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Philippines, and Thailand) jointly proposed the project “Early Warning of Landslides” to the International Programme on Landslides (IPL). The project with aspects of research and capacity development was approved as project C105 of the IPL, and obtained funding from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology as the Asian Joint Project on “Early Warning of Landslides”. Collaboration was obtained with researchers from Italy, USA, Canada, and New Zealand. Some early results were presented in Session 13 “Monitoring, prediction and early warning” at the first World Landslide Forum (Sassa et al. 2008). Landslides herein dedicates this full issue of 11 papers to the internationally important topic of early warning. Sassa et al. (this issue) present a study aimed at developing a new computer simulation code integrating the initiation and motion of rapid landslides triggered by earthquake, rain, or their combined effects. The initiation process is the target of stability analysis through the limit-equilibrium method and the finiteelement approach, while runout analysis targets the post-failure motion. This integrated simulation can be an effective tool to evaluate landslide risk for a targeted area. The paper by Apip et al. (this issue) concerns early warning of shallow landslides and floods at a catchment scale using the half-hourly interval rainfall data from satellite monitoring by the Climate Prediction Centre of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in a hydrological-geotechnical model. The proposed method is applied in Citarum River watershed in Indonesia. This research shows the possibility of early warning of shallow landslides in areas where radar rain gauges are not yet available. Another method for the factor of safety mapping and early warning of shallow landslides using the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Rainfall Measuring Mission and the 30-m Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer DEM is reported by Liao et al. (this issue) with reference to the Indonesian island of Java. Various ground-based landslide-monitoring methods are implemented. Casagli et al. (this issue) applied ground-based radar interferometry to monitor the movement of a large creeping mountain slope and a landslide on the flanks of Stromboli volcano. Yin et al. (this issue a) discuss the large-scale implementation of real-time monitoring in the relocated Wushan town beside the Three Gorges Reservoir, China. In Yin et al. (this issue b), the group of the China Geological Survey compares and integrates landslide-monitoring results from GPS and InSAR in collaboration with the Geological Survey of Canada. Baum et al. (this issue) present an early warning system for rain-induced shallow landslides and debris flows which are successfully managed in the USA West Coast. Osanai et al. (this issue) present the Japanese early warning system for debris flows and shallow landslides using telemetered rainfall measurements, weather radar, rainfall forecasting and a soil-water index model for all of Japan. The warnings issued by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and the Japan Meteorological Agency are for publicly distributed through news media and the internet. Pagano et al. (this issue) study the time prediction of shallow landslides in Italy in unsaturated pyroclastic soils which may fail by loss of suction during rainfall. Massey et al. (this issue) report a successful early warning procedure for an out-burst flood triggered by a retrogressing landslide in New Zealand. Uchimura (this issue) describes a simple, low-cost slopemonitoring and data-transfer system for early warning of landslides, and discusses its performance in an indoor model experiment and in monitoring a real slope. Many early warning papers are already published and many more are going to be published in Landslides. No single thematic issue can be large enough to present the many aspects of early warning, but the guest editors expect this issue to stimulate further research in this important field of landslide-disaster risk reduction. Early warning can only be effective when combined with wider capacity development including public awareness and training of evacuation procedures in close collaboration with local communities. These scientific and social efforts contribute to the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015, “Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters” adopted by the United Nations World Conference on Disaster Reduction.

Welcome message to the Second World Landslide Forum

Landslides pose considerable risks to the environment and the livelihoods of communities throughout the world. There are many signs that the frequency, dimension and impacts of environmental hazards in both the developing and the developed world are on the rise—and landslides are no exception. Climate change plays a particularly important role in this trend. It is a stark fact that it is often the poorest and hungriest people who are the most seriously hit by these dramatic events. Landslides are often triggered by natural events such as heavy rainfall, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. In many cases, however, landslide hazards are strongly influenced by human interventions such as rural development-related activities, agricultural practices, forest management, road construction, river management and urban development. Vegetation cover, forest in particular, and its sound management play a significant role in mitigating the risk of landsliding. In this context, mountain and upland areas merit particular attention. People living in mountain areas rely on an intact environment and soil stability for their livelihoods. In turn, mountain livelihood systems, as well as external pressure on natural resources, may influence the health and stability of the environment. Watershed management is a very sound approach to reducing landslide risks and should be a fundamental part of any initiative related to landslide risk mitigation. Watershed management addresses upstream–downstream linkages, which are very important in the context of landslide processes, and provides a framework for appropriate natural resources management and sound land use planning. Existing scientific knowledge related to modern watershed management and the results of already implemented integrated projects are encouraging. There is evidence that combined and equal attention to research, natural resources management, socio-economic incentives and institutional development leads to a significant reduction of landslide risks and other hazards through a better understanding of the natural and man-made processes involved, better management of natural resources, an improved economic situation of rural, and particularly mountain, populations, favourable governance structures and advanced institutional mechanisms. FAO, the UN specialised agency for food and agriculture, is very concerned about the growing incidence of hazards such as landslides, since they seriously affect the lives, livelihoods and food security of populations. Accordingly, disaster risk management is receiving increasing attention in the FAO’s programmes, particularly in watershed management, forestry, agriculture and overall land-use planning. FAO addresses disaster risk management through an inter-departmental mechanism in order to ensure that the diversity of expertise available within the Organization is fully utilised and captured. In the shaping of future activities of landslide-related initiatives, in particular the International Programme on Landslides (IPL), FAO considers the following elements particularly worthy of attention:

Observation of shear zone development in ring-shear apparatus with a transparent shear box

Using a new ring-shear apparatus with a transparent shear box and video image analysis system, drained and undrained speed-controlled tests were conducted on coarse-grained silica sands to study the shear-zone formation process in granular materials. Velocity distribution profiles of grains under shear at various stages in the ring shear tests were observed through processing the video image by the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) program. Shear-zone thickness and type of shear mode (slide-like or flow-like) during shear were observed. Before reaching peak strength in low-speed and drained condition test, a comparatively major part of the sample in the upper shear box showed a velocity distribution profile of structural deformation and dilatancy behavior. After peak strength, the velocity profile changed into a slide-like mode and thereafter showed almost no change. In higher speed tests with drained and undrained conditions, an almost slide-like mode was observed, compared to low-speed test. Apparent shear-zone thicknesses of high-speed tests are thinner than low-speed tests. Unexpectedly, almost no difference was observed in the shear-zone thickness and mode of shear (slide or flow-like) between drained and undrained tests. This study was conducted as part of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) M101 “Areal prediction of earthquake and rain induced rapid and long-traveling flow phenomena (APERITIF)” of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). These results will contribute to understanding the mechanism of shear-zone development in granular materials as a basic knowledge for disaster risk mitigation of rapid long run-out landslides.

斜面災害研究の課題と国際斜面災害研究計画 (IPL)

斜面災害研究の課題と国際斜面災害研究計画 (IPL)