Just like the last years, we would like to take advantage of the fact that some LandAware members will be in Vienna at #EGU25 in April/May… to get together for one evening, to meet and talk in person.
The get-together will be an informal dinner with good Austrian beer, self-funded by the participants (unfortunately LandAware doesn’t have any funding to manage), in a restaurant/brewery: Salm Brau. We suggest we meet there at 7:30 PM.
If you are in Vienna on that day, and you like the idea, we ask you to FILL THIS FORM as we need to know in advance the number of people participating (a reservation is necessary in that place).
NEWS received from Cees van Westen (University of Twente, The Netherlands)
As part of the process to strengthen national capabilities in tracking disaster losses and damages, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and its partners encourage the development of data standards and methodological frameworks. These frameworks will enable national actors to coherently record hazardous events and their impacts. This, in turn, will improve the understanding of disaster impacts and support multiple data applications, such as early warning, early action, and risk reduction efforts.
In this regard, the Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation of the University of Twente (UT-ITC) will take the lead in conducting a study aimed at improving the cataloguing and impact recording of landslides. This study will provide valuable insights for national organizations responsible for collecting information on hazardous events. The aim is to develop an efficient and feasible reporting framework that can be used to characterize and evaluate landslide databases coherently and consistently across countries.
Ultimately, the findings will be published in a peer-reviewed journal, offering recommendations to enhance the processes and methods used in recording landslide events and their impacts.
We seek support from landslide experts from different countries and would like to ask you to contribute by filling out this questionnaire.
Thank you for your assistance! Cees van Westen, Luigi Lombardo, Hakan Tanyas, Ashok Dahal and David Urueña Ramirez
NEWS received from Maria Teresa Brunetti, Stefano Luigi Gariano, Massimo Melillo, Mauro Rossi, Silvia Peruccacci (CNR, Italy)
The availability of accurate data on landslide occurrence and the rigorous reconstruction of the rainfall conditions that trigger them are essential to improve landslide forecasting, particularly given the growing usage of data-driven landslide prediction models, also based on artificial intelligence.
In this context, we published e-ITALICA, an improved rainfall-induced landslide catalogue, as a result of meticulous data collection and analysis. e-ITALICA includes accurate spatial and temporal information on thousands of rainfall-induced landslides that occurred in Italy between 1996 and 2021 (which were already included in the ITALICA catalogue, previously published in 2023), the triggering rainfall conditions for these landslides, in terms of cumulative event rainfall E (mm) and rainfall duration D (h), and the topographic and land cover information. The triggering conditions were calculated using hourly rainfall measurements from 4000+ rain gauges and applying the CTRL-T software.
The recordings of the WG5 webinar “Using Big Data for Postfire Debris Flow Situational Awareness” by Francis Rengers (U.S. Geological Survey) , held on 9 January 2025, are available on the LandAware YouTube channel:
News received from Ben Mirus (USGS, USA) and Manfred Stähli (WSL, Switzerland)
On Thursday, 9 January, 2025, 3:00 – 4:00 pm CET, within the next WG5 meeting, Francis Rengers from the U.S. Geological Survey, St. Golden, will present his work on “Using Big Data for Postfire Debris Flow Situational Awareness”
Teaser:In semi-arid regions of the United States rainfall intensity thresholds are used to estimate when postfire debris flows may occur. Prior research has shown that postfire debris flows are highly correlated with short-duration rainfall intensity, and that short duration rainfall thresholds (e.g., 15-minute rainfall intensity) can be estimated based on wildfire and terrain attributes. Consequently, it is possible to determine possible debris flow activity in recent burn areas in the western U.S.A. by tracking rainfall rates using publicly available rainfall data. We have developed a software (FlowAlert) and an accompanying map dashboard that monitors when and where rain gages near burn areas cross rainfall intensity thresholds. The software runs continuously on a Linux server, processing more than 2500 rain gages every two hours.
In addition to this presentation (with Q&A) the WG meeting will include the following items:
Pop-ups from the working group members (be prepared to contribute with your info to the group!)
Info about recent and upcoming LandAware events and activities
This session focuses on LEWS at all scales and stages of maturity, from prototype to active and dismissed ones. Test cases describing operational application of consolidated approaches are welcome, as well as works dealing with promising recent innovations, even if still at an experimental stage. Contributions addressing the following topics are welcome: – real-time monitoring systems (IoT) – prediction tools for warning purposes – in-situ monitoring instruments and/or remote sensing devices – warning models for issuing warning – operational applications and performance analyses – machine learning techniques applied for early warning purposes
The abstract submission deadline is 15 January 2025, 13:00 CET.
On-site participants who wish to apply for Roland Schlich travel support must be the contact author and the first and presenting author of their contribution. They must submit an abstract by 2 December 2024, 13:00 CET.
Dear colleagues, we’re introducing a NEW landslides session at EGU25: NH3.16 Linking weather-related landslide activity with hydro-meteorological drivers. Join us to explore how hydro-meteorological drivers at scales from soil pores to weather systems affect landslide activity and to discuss how we can leverage this knowledge to improve landslide situational awareness and early warning. We seek a wide range of perspectives from geomorphology, hydrology, meteorology, remote sensing, data science and beyond. Please spread the word and keep our session in mind as you prepare your EGU contributions.
We look forward to learning about your research in Vienna! Best wishes from the organizers, Lisa Luna, Corey Froese, Luca Piciullo, Yaser Peiro, Luca Ciabatta
The growing availability of multi-temporal landslide inventories, for example from multi-epoch LiDAR, InSAR, and monitoring, has precipitated a shift from static landslide susceptibility evaluations to a better understanding of both spatial and temporal variations in landslide activity. In parallel, the development of regional to global hydroclimatic models, re-analysis products, next generation remote sensing products, and compilations of in-situ observations (such as ERA5, SMAP-L4, and GSDR) is allowing researchers to obtain a broader understanding of the hydro-meteorological conditions that affect landslide activity: for example soil moisture, snow melt, precipitation, and meso and synoptic scale weather systems. Currently, researchers and practitioners are exploring how linkages between historical landslide activity and hydro-meteorological drivers can be integrated to improve data driven models for landslide situational awareness and early warning systems. This session seeks to bring together a wide range of perspectives from geomorphology, hydrology, meteorology, remote sensing, data science and beyond to share experiences and to spur future research advances and operational application development.
Subtopics may include: • Constructing multi-temporal landslide activity data sets utilizing remote sensing data and/or point source terrestrial data • Linking regional landslide activity trends and variability to hydro-meteorological, geological, morphological, or other conditions. • Evaluating the suitability of different hydroclimatic models, re-analysis datasets, remote sensing products, and in-situ observations to different landslide and terrain types or research objectives • Approaches to quantifying linkages between hydro-meteorological drivers and landslide activity • Development and testing of new algorithms and infrastructure, including machine and deep learning approaches, to support weather-related landslide situational awareness and warning
The recordings of the WG5 webinar by Luca Ciabatta on “Soil moisture-based thresholds for the assessment of landslide hazard”, held on 20 September 2024, are available on the LandAware YouTube channel:
LandAware WG5 meeting 20 September 2024, 3 p.m. CEST
Luca Ciabatta from the Research Institute of Geo-Hydrological Protection (IRPI) of the National Research Council (CNR), Perugia, will present his recent work on
Soil moisture-based thresholds for the assessment of landslide hazard.
Summary: The Civil Protection Service of Umbria Region, central Italy, developed a landslide early warning system based on soil moisture conditions and rainfall over the regional territory. By identifying the degree of saturation before and after the rainfall event (obtained through a hydrological model), it has been observed that most of the activations occurred when the soil reached saturation. In this way, an alert can be issued when the amount of rainfall needed by the soil to reach saturation is observed. The proposed method is able to identify correctly most of the proposed events with a very limited amount of false alarms.
People can join the meeting with the following link:
