training the trainers in
landslide management
European
Commission
Università degli
Studi del Sannio,
Italy
newsletter n.1
T
CLM intends to realise a short
course in Landslide Management.
The course is addressed to experts that
have a significant know-how in this field
and that want to improve their expertise
both for professional reasons and for use
in the training of others.
The tuition path will be oriented to
fill a gap in the European Civil Protection
Training system in which Landslide
matters are rarely proposed and/or
considered.
The present proposal is based on:
❍ The objectives of landslides
management are to reduce or
to avoid the human, physical
and economic losses suffered by
individuals, by the society, and by the
country at large;
❍ Landslide management
frameworks include information
on prediction and warning, risk
assessment or vulnerability
analysis of landslide occurrence and
rehabilitation plans for each event;
❍ Recent technological advances have
resulted in the creation of powerful
tools, which empower us to deal
effectively with crises, disasters and
emergencies;
❍ The Landslides manager
can effectively operate in the
preparedness, response and relief
stages of landslide events. His/
her work ranges from efficient
monitoring of potential disasters to
the application of hazard analysis
models that can be used to save
life and property. Disaster planning
involves predicting the risk of a
landslide and its possible impact.
In the preparedness stage the
Landslide Manager operates in risk
assessment, vulnerability analysis
through hazard mapping through the
identification of various geographical,
topographical and geo-climatic
characteristics of an area;
in the response phase monitoring
of search and rescue, damage
tclm
Urbater, France
assessment and the identification of
alternate routes for communication;
❍ The Landslides Manager also
collaborates in the phases of
rehabilitation and relief.
WHAT WE EXPECT
lthough landslides are the major
landform process in every kind
of area, mountainous, hilly, as well as
in others considered flat, they receive
attention by the mass-media only when
they happen to cause death or damage.
As shown by statistical analyses the
number of destructive mass movements
have significantly increased in the last
decades. worldwide in areas where
landslides can be frequent in both terms
of time and of space, urban expansion
and land use have lead to the occupation
of very fragile territorial areas or ones
that could become so in the near future
because of climatic changes; especially
in terms of intensity and duration
of rainfalls and sea level increase.
these trigger erosional phenomena,
transforming non-hazardous areas into
very dangerous ones.
In such a context, the TCLM project
could assume a key role in the aspects
related to the education and to lifelong
learning by civil protection experts
respectively.
It must be observed that
landslide management is a typical
interdisciplinary field, where geologists
and engineers should have appropriate
knowledge and competence. this makes
for very complex management prior to,
during, and after any landslide event.
The TCLM project proposes
a
Morphosis Progetti
e Tecnologie, Italy
traditional training and distance
learning for highly skilled professional
profiles using classroom, field trips,
multimedia and virtual reality tools
by taking advantage of both scientific
background and teaching experience of
the partners of the project; but also from
anyone who becomes part of the TCLM
virtual community.
One of the fundamental aims of TCLM
is to promote a solid networking of
experiences on landslides, that could
bring ever better contents (and also,
better integration of the formers) to
the Web portal, providing for the first
time an organic access to information
and knowledge on mass movements.
such open processes can be of great
significance where the access to technical
information shared in traditional ways is
generally very difficult.
Guidelines that should inspire the
whole activity of the network, and the
reduction of the landslide hazard can be
listed as:
❍ Promoting awareness and
knowledge of landslides management
among decision makers and public
offices;
❍ Exchange of experience and
transfer of know-how in the fields of
natural hazard and landslides;
❍ Development of human resources
and training in professions linked to
landslides management and
related activities;
❍ Development and enhancement of
landslides management as part of a
sustainable economic development,
namely by networking between
actors in each territory.
training the trainers in
landslide management
page 2
tclm
newsletter n.1
A BRIEF OF REVIEW OF THE GLOBAL
COST OF LANDSLIDES
ne of the prime reasons for
developing the TCLM project is to
increase awareness in all sectors of the
global community of the importance of
landslides. There is little doubt that, in
comparison with other natural hazards,
landslides have a relatively low profile.
Indeed, it is likely that if a member of the
public were asked to name two natural
hazards, landslides would usually figure,
with earthquakes and volcanoes tending
to dominate.
An examination of the global
statistics for natural. hazards supports
this perception. David Alexander, of the
University of Massachusetts, collated
statistics for the number of people
affected by each of the main natural
hazards during the period 1900-1976. His
data suggest that over 160 million people
were affected by floods during this
period, 30 million by earthquakes, but just
45,000 by landslides during this period.
In this context the costs of landslides do
not appear to be particularly significant
globally.
o
However, the compilation of the
most destructive landslide events
themselves provides a very different
picture (table 1). In these nine events
alone over 190,000 people were killed,
and it is certain that many more were
affected. So why do the statistics so
under-represent landslides as a hazard?
the primary reason is that most sets
of statistics are collected on the basis
of trigger not mechanism. So taking
the 1920 Gansu event in China. Here the
trigger of the landslides that caused
so many fatalities was an earthquake.
hence, the death-toll is recorded as
being earthquake-induced. in reality of
course almost no one is actually killedby
an earthquake . It is building collapses
induced by the seismic waves that is the
primary cause of loss of life.
Five of the events listed in table
1 were seismically-triggered. similar
problems occur when volcanic flank
collapses occur (see Nevado del Ruiz for
example) or tropical cyclones trigger
mass movements (see Hurricane Mitch).
There are some important
implications of this. Take seismicallytriggered landslides for example. the 1999
Chi-chi earthquake in Taiwan for
example is known to have induced over
22,000 landslides in an area of 20,000 km2.
Some of these landslides were extremely
large . indeed two exceeded 100 million
tonnes of material.
Several hundred people were killed
by landslides. it is likely that future
earthquakes will trigger large numbers
of landslides. unfortunately at present
TABLE 1: SOME LARGE LANDSLIDE DISASTERS IN THE 20TH CENTURY
year
1920
1933
1933
1949
1962
1963
1970
1985
1997
location
gansu, china
sichuan, china
sichuan, china
khait, tajikistan
huascaran
vaiont, italy
huascaran
nevado del ruiz
nicaragua, honduras
event
seismically-triggered landslides
seismically-triggered landslides
landslide dam collapse
seismically triggered rockfall
seismically-triggered rock avalanche
reservoir bank collapse
seismically-triggered rock avalanche
volcanic flank collapse
hurricane mitch
est. fatalities
100,000
6,300
2,500
>12,000
>4,000
2,500
18,000
20,000
25,000
we have no mechanism for forecasting
the occurrence of earthquakes, and
there appears to be no prospect of a
step forward in this area in the next few
years at least. we have a much better
understanding of landslides however,
and it is likely that research over the
next few years will allow considerable
further progress to be made. hence,
by focussing extra attention on
understanding landslides, by translating
that research into practical solutions,
and by disseminating that knowledge it
may be possible to reduce the death toll
associated with future earthquakes.
Of course, there are other problems
with the existing data on the impact of
landslides. most notably, the statistics fail
to include the effects of relatively small
landslides.
These occur in large numbers
however for example, in the finest study
of its type, Fausto Guzzetti of CNR in
Italy compiled a database of all landslide
events in Italy between 1410 and 1999.
In total 996 landslides were counted
with a cumulative death toll of 12,421.
Even this figure is probably an underestimate.
So, we hope that this serves to
illustrate the problems that the global
community is facing from landslides. In
recognising the scope of the problem we
should feel morally bound to seek to do
something about it. We hope that TCLM
will be step along the way to this end
by providing both high quality training
resources in landslide management and
in creating an on-line community for the
sharing of information and the solving of
problems.