In the framework of the EU Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection and the associated Proposal for a Soil Framework Directive, landslides are included as one of the soil threats for which it is necessary to identify the areas at risk in EU member states and implement national mitigation programmes. In this context, this publication presents the results of a meeting of experts from a number of national geological surveys, research institutes and universities in Europe, held at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy on 23-24 October 2007, with the main aim to discuss and draft guidelines for mapping areas at risk of landslides in Europe. This volume includes examples of landslide inventories and susceptibility, hazard and risk mapping approaches in France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy and Spain. It also discusses some harmonisation issues and criteria for mapping landslide susceptibility across Europe. In addition, it draws recommendations on a common methodology for landslide susceptibility mapping based on geographically-nested "Tier" approaches at various scales, from European-wide, small-scale mapping using heuristic methods and readily available data on landslide conditioning and triggering factors, to medium-scale mapping by statistical approaches using also landslide inventory data, and to large-scale susceptibility assessment applying physically-based models in high-risk local areas pinpointed by the previous Tier approaches.

This book contains peer-reviewed papers from the Second World Landslide Forum, organised by the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL), that took place in September 2011. The entire material from the conference has been split into seven volumes, this one is the first: 1. Landslide Inventory and Susceptibility and Hazard Zoning, 2. Early Warning, Instrumentation and Monitoring, 3. Spatial Analysis and Modelling, 4. Global Environmental Change, 5. Complex Environment, 6. Risk Assessment, Management and Mitigation, 7. Social and Economic Impact and Policies.

Landslides occur in all geographic regions of the nation in response to a wide range of conditions and triggering processes that include storms, earthquakes, and human activities. Landslides in the United States result in an estimated average of 25 to 50 deaths annually and cost $1 to 3 billion per year. In addition to direct losses, landslides also cause significant environmental damage and societal disruption. Partnerships for Reducing Landslide Risk reviews the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS)National Landslide Hazards Mitigation Strategy, which was created in response to a congressional directive for a national approach to reducing losses from landslides. Components of the strategy include basic research activities, improved public policy measures, and enhanced mitigation of landslides. This report commends the USGS for creating a national approach based on partnerships with federal, state, local, and non-governmental entities, and finds that the plan components are the essential elements of a national strategy. Partnerships for Reducing Landslide Risk recommends that the plan should promote the use of risk analysis techniques, and should play a vital role in evaluating methods, setting standards, and advancing procedures and guidelines for landslide hazard maps and assessments. This report suggests that substantially increased funding will be required to implement a national landslide mitigation program, and that as part of a 10-year program the funding mix should transition from research and guideline development to partnership-based implementation of loss reduction measures.

Landslides in sensitive clays represent a major hazard in the northern countries of the world such as Canada, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and in the US state of Alaska. Past and recent examples of catastrophic landslides at e.g. Saint-Jean-Vianney in 1971, Rissa in 1979, Finneidfjord in 1996 and Kattmarka in 2009 have illustrated the great mobility of the remolded sensitive clays and their hazardous retrogressive potential. These events call for a better understanding of landslide in sensitive clay terrain to assist authorities with state-of-the-art hazard assessment methods, risk management schemes, mitigation measures and planning. During the last decades the elevated awareness regarding slope movement in sensitive clays has led to major advances in mapping techniques and development of highly sophisticated geotechnical and geophysical investigation tools. Great advances in numerical techniques dealing with progressive failure and landslide kinematic have also lead to increase understanding and predictability of landslides in sensitive clays and their consequences. This volume consists of the latest scientific research by international experts dealing with geological, geotechnical and geophysical aspects of slope failure in sensitive clays and focuses on understanding the full spectrum of challenges presented by landslides in such brittle materials.

Landslides are a major natural hazard in most mountainous and hilly regions as well as in steep river banks and coastlines. In the EU Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection landslides are mainly recognized as a soil threat for which areas where they are likely to occur in the future have to be delineated, and measures to reduce their impact have to be designed. Thus the Strategy implies that landslide susceptibility, hazard and risk assessments are needed for appropriate risk management in Europe. To enable such assessments landslide databases, usually including landslide inventory maps and linked alphanumeric information, are a key infrastructure. They should contain information on the location of landslide phenomena, types, history, state of activity, magnitude or size, lithology involved, failure mechanisms, causal factors and the damage caused. Yet, it was not known which national (or regional) landslide databases contain all this information, and thus allow risk assessment.^Therefore, this report makes a detailed review of national landslide databases in EU member states, EU official candidate and potential candidate countries and EFTA countries together with a number of regional databases, and proposes improvements for delineating areas at risk in agreement with the EU Soil Thematic Strategy and its associated Proposal for a Soil Framework Directive, and for achieving interoperability and harmonisation in agreement with INSPIRE Directive, which aims at establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community. The report is based on the analysis of replies to a detailed questionnaire sent out to the competent persons and organisations in 37 European countries in spring 2010 and a review of literature, websites and main European legislation on the subject, carried out in the framework of the EU-FP7 SafeLand project.^In total, information has been collected and analysed for 24 national databases in 22 countries and 22 regional databases in 10 countries. At the moment, over 633,000 landslides are recorded in national databases, representing on average less than 50% of the estimated landslides occurred in these countries. The sample of regional databases included over 103,000 landslides, with an estimated completeness substantially higher than that of national databases, as more attention can be paid for data collection over smaller regions. Both for national and regional coverage, information on landslide magnitude, geometrical characteristics, triggering factors, age and impact (damage and casualties) reported in national and regional databases greatly differs, as it strongly depends on the objectives of the database, the data collection methods used, the resources employed and the remaining landslide expression.^In particular, information on landslide initiation and/or reactivation dates is generally included for less than 25% of records, thus making hazard and hence risk assessment difficult. In most databases, scarce information on landslide impact further hinders risk assessment at regional and national scales. About half of national and regional agencies provide free web-GIS visualisation services. Yet, the potential of existing landslide databases is often not fully exploited as, in many cases, access by the general public and external researchers is restricted. Additionally, the information is generally only available in the national or local language, thus hampering consultation for most foreigners. Based on these results, suggestions for a minimum set of attributes, i.e. those required for landslide risk assessments, to be collected and made available by European countries in support of EU policies are also presented.

With the increasing need to take an holistic view of landslide hazard and risk, this book overviews the concept of risk research and addresses the sociological and psychological issues resulting from landslides. Its integrated approach offers understanding and ability for concerned organisations, landowners, land managers, insurance companies and researchers to develop risk management solutions. Global case studies illustrate a variety of integrated approaches, and a concluding section provides specifications and contexts for the next generation of process models.

This book is a part of ICL new book series “ICL Contribution to Landslide Disaster Risk Reduction” founded in 2019. Peer-reviewed papers submitted to the Fifth World Landslide Forum were published in six volumes of this book series. This book contains the followings: Part I with topics is mainly about landslides and earthquakes; landslide dams and outburst floods; catastrophic large-scale landslides in mountainous regions. Part II with topics is mainly about impact of climate change; loess landslides; mapping, monitoring and modeling of landslides; stabilization and mitigation; application of new technology in landslide studies. Prof. Vít Vilímek is the vice-president of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) and a member of the evaluation committee, Editor-in-Chief of the university journal AUC Geographica and Associate Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Geoenvironmental Disasters. He is a Professor of Physical Geography at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. Prof. Fawu Wang is the President of the International Consortium on Geo-disaster Reduction (ICGdR) and the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Geoenvironmental Disasters. He is a Professor at the School of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, China. Dr. Alexander Strom is a chief expert at the Geodynamics Research Center LLC, Moscow, Russia. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Chang’an University, Xi’an, China, Visiting Professor at SKLGP, Chengdu, China, and an alternative representative of the JSC “Hydroproject Institute” in ICL. Prof. Kyoji Sassa is the Founding President and the Secretary-General of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). He has been the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal Landslides since its foundation in 2004. Prof. Peter Bobrowsky is the President of the International Consortium on Landslides. He is a Senior Scientist of Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa, Canada. Prof. Kaoru Takara is the Executive Director of the International Consortium on Landslides. He is a Professor and Dean of Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies (GSAIS) in Human Survivability (Shishu-Kan), Kyoto University.

Landslides are a component of those agents of nature that transport rock and soil from mountains or hillsides to streams, lakes and seas, where new sedimentary rocks begin to form. Therefore, as well as destructive forces that can be induced by human activity, landslides are part of the earth's natural cyclic process of uplift, erosion, and sedimentation. With the growth of human population and the increasing habitation of ever-steeper slopes and higher altitudes, Man is both experiencing the effects of landslides and causing landslides with increasing frequency. These adverse effects include loss of life, injury, and damage to public and private works, as well as environmental damage. Accordingly, it is an opportune time to address the hazard posed by landslides, and to assess strategies to mitigate that hazard. Assessment of Proposed Partnerships to Implement a National Landslide Hazards Mitigation Strategy: Interim Reports is an interim statement addressing the U.S. Geological Survey's proposal for a national landslide hazards mitigation strategy. The scope of this interim report is constrained to assessing whether all the partners necessary for such a national strategy have been identified by the proposal-conclusions and recommendations to address the remainder of the statement of task will be presented in the committee's final report (e.g., will include comments regarding effective partnership implementation; funding strategies required for an effective mitigation program; and the balance between different components of a national strategy). In addition, in this interim report the committee offers a number of comments intended as interim guidance for the U.S. Geological Survey as it continues to plan a national strategy.