Landscape hazards, risks, and society
Addressing Uncertainties in Landslide Prediction Across Spatial and Temporal Scales
Dr Alessandro Mondini1, Dr Oded Katz2
1Cnr-imati, Genova, Italy, 2GSI, Tel Aviv, Israel
As landscapes evolve under the influence of natural forces and human activities, the potential for hazards such as landslides increases, particularly in regions undergoing rapid environmental change. Landslides are complex phenomena influenced by various interacting factors, including geological, climatic, and anthropogenic processes. This complexity introduces significant uncertainties in forecasting, making landslide prediction a challenge that requires multidisciplinary approaches combining scientific rigour with practical applications.
This proposed session explores advances in probabilistic, machine learning-based, and physics-based landslide forecasting, focusing on how these techniques manage and convey uncertainty at different spatial and temporal scales. Emphasis will be placed on multiscale methods that bridge local, regional, and global perspectives, highlighting approaches that quantify uncertainties to improve the robustness and reliability of predictions. The session will also examine the implications of uncertainty in forecasting for understanding and mitigating landslide-related risks, as well as for communicating with stakeholders.
We invite papers that present innovative strategies to address uncertainty in landslide forecasting, including probabilistic models, data-driven techniques, and validation frameworks for risk reduction. The session will provide a platform for discussing the current state of landslide forecasting, challenges in implementing reliable prediction models, and future directions for enhancing both accuracy and transparency in hazard assessments.
The session is proposed by the Hazard and Risk International Geographical Union Commission.
Advanced technologies for natural hazard monitoring and data integration with social vulnerability for risk reduction strategies
Dr Rosa Colacicco1, Dr. Marco La Salandra1, Dr. Isabella Lapietra1
1Department of Earth and Geoenvironmental Sciences - University of Bari, Bari, Italy
A deeper knowledge of natural hazards, which may originate from different sources and systems (such as atmospheric, hydrological, oceanographic, volcanological or seismic), is essential for accelerating actions towards the pursuit of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In this context, advanced technologies and state-of-the-art methodologies are essential for all phases of disaster management, from spatial planning in the preparedness stage to post-emergency operations.
Key advances include the use of remote sensing technologies, such as satellite and drones, to provide timely, high-resolution data on hazard occurrence and progression. These technologies offer unprecedented precision in detecting environmental changes, enabling more accurate forecasting and early warning systems. The integration of machine learning algorithms, coupled with high-performance computing, further enhances the processing and analysis of vast datasets, facilitating the identification of vulnerable communities and the optimization of resource allocation.
The combination of geospatial data from remote sensing with the socio-economic features, of the probably affected territories, could significantly contribute to a comprehensive risk assessment that addresses both physical and social dimensions of disasters. The integration of social vulnerability mapping with technical approaches represents a challenge in disaster studies as disaster risk depends on the severity of hazard, the number of people or assets exposed and the susceptibility of people and economic assets to suffer loss and damage.
This session aims to examine and discuss case studies and research that demonstrate the potential of these technologies to improve early warning systems, disaster response, and long-term resilience planning, also by sharing qualitative and quantitative information to foster collaborative advances for monitoring and mapping natural hazards including integration with social vulnerability investigations.
Engineering Geomorphology
Dr Elyssa De Carli1,2, Dr Alex Sims3
1SLR Consulting, Wollongong, Australia, 2University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia, 3Alluvium Consulting , Melbourne , Australia
Floodplains, coastal sediments and slope deposits form the foundations for most of the world’s cities and constitute the deposits that civil engineers work and build in. Each of these environments presents a unique set of engineering challenges. Without a thorough understanding of their properties and behaviour, unintended consequences or construction issues can arise. Geomorphology helps to explain the spatial distribution, properties and mechanical behaviour of these engineering materials.
This session invites case studies that explore the role of geomorphology in civil engineering projects. For example, understanding a site’s geomorphology can help to overcome complex engineering challenges by providing insights into surface processes, sediment dynamics, landform changes or geohazards. The session will demonstrate that understanding the geomorphology of a site can provide optimal engineering solutions considered best practice and appropriate to the environmental context. This session welcomes abstracts related to all environments e.g. fluvial, coastal, hillslope, volcanic, periglacial and glacial.
Hydrological extreme events, climate variability and environmental changes: patterns, controls, and attribution across scales and landscapes
Professor Lothar Schulte1, Professor Daniela Kroehling2, Dr. Libor Elleder3, Professor Ian C. Fuller4, Michael Kahle5
1University of Barcelona, Department of Geography, Barcelona, Spain, 2National Scientific and Technical Council, Department of Geology, Santa Fe, Argentina, 3Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, Prague, Czech Republic, 4Massey University, School of Agriculture and Environment, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 5University Freiburg, Department of Geography, Freiburg, Germany
The session sponsored by the Past Global Changes (PAGES) Floods Working Group focuses on hydrological extreme events and environmental changes. Floods and droughts constitute the most significant natural hazard to societies across the globe. Hydrological variability caused by climate and environmental forcing is recorded in landforms and stratigraphic sequences of river, lake, wetland, coastal and marine deposits, botanical archives and, more recently, by archaeological and historical evidence. Millennial and centennial time series include the very rare extreme events, which are often considered as 'unprecedented'. By understanding their timing, magnitude, frequency, controls and attribution in conjunction with prevailing climate regimes and human activities, we can disentangle the dynamics of regional flood types in varied geomorphological settings, a proxy for future climate predictions.
Another key issue is how, when and where floodplains, wetlands, lakes, coastal areas and deltas, have been profoundly transformed by land use, land reclamation, hydraulic management, industrialization, mining, etc., changing flood dynamics and floodplain morphology as well as providing evidence for the concept of Anthropocene. The interdisciplinary integration of information is critical for future flood risk scenarios, impacts, adaptation and mitigation strategies, and integrated flood management.
We welcome contributions using fluvial, lake, wetland and marine sediments, tree rings, speleothems, archaeological and documentary archives, instrumental data, and modelling, which:
- reconstruct and model temporal and spatial flood and drought patterns related to climate variability and change, including long-term changes in rainfall and land use;
- investigate paleohydrological changes and geomorphic response, with their effects on fluvial landforms, lakes and ancient societies;
- provide knowledge from short- to long-term development of natural and cultural river and coastal landscapes and human-environmental interaction;
- develop (supra-) regional historical maps of extreme floods and droughts;
- highlight past and present risk mitigation strategies of local communities and assess the flood risk of cultural heritage sites.
Landform Transformation and Sustainable Habitability
Professor Satish Sangode1
1Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India
Emergent climate change has accelerated the process of ‘landform transformation,’ and the increasing human interference in habitation aided by technology-driven growth has laid the way for the complex response of natural systems. Most occupied surfaces remained metastable during the past few decades and are in the state of transformation to adapt to new sedimentation-erosion regimes in response to the altered weather conditions. Predicting the stability of these surfaces demands comprehensive studies by integrating various parameters. The young and active orogenies like the Himalaya-Karakorum-Tibetan belt, Andes, and the many active orogenic mountains within New Zealand demonstrate their unique Mountain Valley Systems. These active mountain valleys are further vulnerable to frequent fluctuations in sediment mass to slope ratios and relative base level changes intensified by climate change. New efforts, innovative approaches, and concerted teamwork in these areas hold the potential for sustainable development, offering safety to life and infrastructure in almost every region with human settlement. Interactions amongst these processes, their magnitudes, and scaling as landform transformation for the investigation of stable/meta-stable surfaces need to be discussed on a single platform. Theme-based geomorphological applications to sustainable development in such deglaciated mountain valleys, therefore, can make a unique gathering and possible thought-action scenario on this emerging aspect.
Landscape and landform evolution under geohazard impulses
Assoc. Prof. Lukasz Pawlik1, Prof. Silvio Carlos Rodrigues2, Prof. Ola Fredin3, Assoc. Prof. Adolfo Quesada-Román4, Dr. Daniel Hölbling5
1Institute of Earth Sciences, University Of Silesia, Sosnowiec, Poland, 2Institute of Geography, Federal University of Uberlândia, Uberlândia, Brazil, 3Department of Geoscience, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, 4School of Geography, University of Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica, 5Department of Geoinformatics—Z_GIS, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
Geohazards arise from pulses of energy triggered by processes of diverse origins. It is commonly believed that the magnitude and frequency of these processes and resulting geohazards have increased over the past decades and will continue to rise due to projected climate warming. However, endogenic processes such as earthquakes and volcanic activity fall outside this potential process-response feedback framework.
This session aims to showcase geohazard research's latest achievements and trends across different spatiotemporal scales. It includes reconstructing past geomorphological and geological processes that have abruptly changed the landscape, land mass, and ocean bottom configuration, as well as the impact of geohazards on other Earth system components such as the biosphere and atmosphere. Currently, geohazards are primarily considered in the context of human living conditions and the real and potential damages they can cause. Their adverse outcomes warrant thorough evaluation and analysis, and their future impact is the focus of increasing studies on modeling and prediction.
This session seeks to address all these aspects by highlighting the variability and strength of geohazard science and answering the most pressing questions: Are geohazards increasing in intensity and magnitude? Is it possible to predict them? Were there historical analogs to the geohazards we observe today? What are the methods of geohazard modeling and prediction? What is the future of geohazard research and science?
We invite submissions on past extreme events that caused geohazards to humans or the environment, various observational and monitoring techniques, geohazard modeling and prediction methods, and retrospectives on geohazard science's development, impact, and achievements. This session aims to bring together knowledge and experience on geohazards from diverse perspectives and approaches.
Landscape conditioning for cascading sediment hazards in Pacific steepland catchments
Dr Sam McColl1, Professor Ian Fuller2
1GNS Science, Lower Hutt, New Zealand, 2Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Communities downstream of erodible, high-rainfall steepland catchments are vulnerable to sediment disasters. Many Pacific Rim nations are particularly prone to such disasters, due to weak, tectonically deformed geology, steep topography, high weathering rates, agricultural land-use pressures, high intensity rainfall, and high density populations living on floodplains. Catchments in such landscapes can generate high magnitude floods, which coupled with severe rainfall-triggered erosion in the form of landslides and gullying, can translate into high levels of sediment inundation and cascading or multiplicative hazards.
Land-use practices, such as hill country pastoralism, can substantially increase erosion, while poorly managed plantation forestry operations, aimed at reducing erosion, can introduce additional slash and woody debris compounding sediment disasters. Well-designed hard engineering approaches, such as sabo dams, can help reduce downstream impacts, but are expensive and can introduce additional problems including river constriction and habitat degradation. Climate changes that increase the intensity or frequency of heavy rainfall events may also elevate the likelihood of sediment disasters in the future. However, quantitatively attributing these factors to individual sediment disasters, and forecasting the response of dynamic catchments to future events, is challenging. This is due to complexities arising from e.g. system memory effects, transient sediment storage, uncertainty about exhaustion or recharge time of erosion sources, and uncertainty about the sediment transport mechanisms (e.g. flow phase changes) during extreme events.
This session welcomes contributions that present case-studies of sediment disasters, approaches to measurement and quantification, frameworks for understanding geomorphic complexity in sediment disasters, studies analysing the impacts of land use of management approaches, and studies that use physical or numerical modelling methods to simulate sediment disasters. Studies from or applicable to the Pacific region are particularly encouraged, and anyone interested in establishing a research community focused on Pacific steepland geomorphology and associated surface process hazards should consider joining this session.
Seismic Related Cascading Hazards: How can they contribute to improve paleoseismic studies?
Dr Matthew Agius1, Prof Maria Tereza Herrera Ramirez2, Dr Aaron Micallef3, Prof Mauro Soldati4
1University of Malta, Msida, Malta, 2Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico, 3Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Santa Cruz, United States, 4Universita' di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy
Understanding hazards as part of an interconnected chain or web of events, rather than in isolation, is crucial for a systemic and holistic approach. This perspective is particularly effective in exploring landscape evolution and assessing hazard susceptibility in regions prone to seismic activity. Geomorphological factors play a critical role in determining an area’s vulnerability to such hazards. Earthquakes, as one of the most impactful natural phenomena, significantly shape landscapes over time. Recent major events in regions like Turkey, Morocco, and Afghanistan highlight the profound and lasting effects of seismic activity on landscapes. Paleoseismic investigations, using multi- and transdisciplinary techniques, provide a more comprehensive understanding of these processes. These techniques not only enhance paleoseismic reconstructions but also contribute to more robust geohazard analyses. Research indicates that seismic events often trigger subsequent natural hazards, which can further alter the landscape in both the short and long term. This session aims to explore seismic hazards within the broader context of connected geomorphic events, offering a comprehensive understanding of landscape dynamics in both onshore and offshore environments. Ultimately, the goal is to enhance resilience in regions vulnerable to seismic hazards through a deeper grasp of these complex interconnections.
Spatio-temporal landslide assessments – new challenges in mapping, modelling, validation and scenario building
Professor Thomas Glade1, Dr. Stefan Steger2
1University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, 2GeoSphere Austria, Vienna, Austria
Assessing landslide dynamics over extensive geographical areas is crucial in many regions worldwide, with significant implications for land use planning, risk management, and early warning. Accurate assessments not only support effective spatial planning and intervention strategies but also enhance our understanding of landslide processes over space and time. This session will explore a range of research topics, including landslide inventories, spatial modelling techniques, innovative space-time modelling approaches, validation methods and scenario building that consider environmental and climate change changes, reflecting the evolving.
Recent advancements have led to the refinement of traditional models and concepts, particularly in areas such as inventory data generation, spatially explicit modelling, accuracy assessment and the integration of spatial and temporal modelling domains (space-time landslide models). However, new challenges persist, including the need to address compound and cascading multi-hazards, extreme events, and the dynamic conditions resulting from climate change and human modifications to landscapes. These complexities require innovative approaches that effectively integrate spatial and temporal dimensions in landslide hazard assessments.
This session aims to bring together research concepts, methodologies, and practical applications in spatially explicit landslide assessment or landslide assessments covering larger spatial extents. Contributions focusing on novel technological and methodological advancements are encouraged, as well as examples that integrate spatial and temporal domains—such as space-time modelling or spatially variable precipitation thresholds. Our core objective is to review and learn from both past and current methodologies, sharing insights to enhance future approaches in the integration of spatial models with precipitation thresholds and innovative space-time assessments.
The geomorphological impacts of landslides and their associated hazards
Associate Professor Yuichi Hayakawa1, Dr Timothy Stahl2, Associate Professor Hitoshi Saito3, Dr. Samuel McColl4, Associate Professor Louise Vick5
1University of Hokkaido, Sapporo, Japan, 2University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, 3Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan, 4GNS Science, Lower Hutt, New Zealand, 5UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
This session will focus on recent developments in understanding the geomorphological significance of landslides and their hazards. We will explore cutting-edge techniques such as remote sensing, uncrewed aerial systems, photogrammetry, lidar, satellite-based positioning, subsurface surveys, and geospatial analysis to assess and monitor landslide activity, with a particular focus on geomorphological impacts. The session will showcase theoretical approaches for characterizing landslide processes, including slope stability analysis, sediment transport modelling, machine learning for landslide detection, and geomorphic connectivity assessments. Applications of these advances will be discussed in the context of hazards and risk mitigation, environmental conservation, and the integration of geomorphological insights for the sustainable development of local communities.
Overall, this session aims to bridge the gaps between methodological advances and practical applications in landslide studies. We welcome contributions that approach these issues from different timescales – from the geological and historical records of landslides to active slope monitoring and forward modelling.
This session is co-sponsored by the joint commission/workgroup of IGU/IAG "Geomorphology and Society".
