Cities are expanding faster than ever, often onto steep and unstable terrain. As urban areas grow, landslides increasingly threaten homes, roads, and critical infrastructure. To manage this risk, scientists produce landslide susceptibility maps, which estimate where landslides are most likely to occur. These maps are widely used by planners and decision-makers. But there is a quiet assumption buil ...[Read More]
Training of Trainers to improve Geological Disasters Resilience in Malaysia
Over the years, we have witnessed a growing number of geological disasters due to climatic shifts. One such disaster is the landslide, and the main culprit of such occurrences can be attributed to intense rainfall coupled with high slope angles, especially in areas previously not expected to be susceptible. In this post we share a successful experience of ‘training of trainers’ in Mala ...[Read More]
The 2023 Carnival disaster in São Paulo: an all time record for rainfall in Brazil
In February 2023, Brazil experienced its largest rainfall event on record, which devastated the northern coast of the state of São Paulo. This event caused landslides, floods, and numerous fatalities, making it even more tragic than previous disasters in the region, which already have been elaborated on in another blog post. The situation highlights the urgent need for effective emergency manageme ...[Read More]
Learning more about geohazard: Talking with EGU_NH 2023 Sergey Soloviev Medalist
It is my pleasure to interview the 2023 EGU Sergey Soloviev Medalist Dr Peng Cui, Professor at the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Resources、Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), known for his work and commitment to understanding geohazards, especially earthquake-induced hazards. He has dedicated his life to understanding how to minimize disaster ...[Read More]
IoT and Natural Hazards: the latest updates
In my blog post last year, I talked about the escalation of extreme events in Brazil, and one of the main questions was whether the scientific community would need new methods and technologies to deal with extreme events aggravated by climate change. This year, during one of the Innovations (WG05) working group meetings of the International Network on Landslide Early Warning Systems (LandAware), I ...[Read More]
Lessons learnt, and to be learnt from the Uttarakhand, Himalaya 2021 catastrophic event.
Rising global temperature and melting of glaciers in the Himalaya are changing the Himalayan cryospheric dynamics and causing a dramatic increase in the frequency and magnitude of the natural and anthropogenic hazards. One such example was the 7th February 2021 Uttarakhand landslide-induced floods, which killed almost 200 people and washed away two hydropower dams, amidst when India was dealing wi ...[Read More]
LANDAWARE: the international network on landslide early warning systems
For today’s interview, it gives me great pleasure to host Dr Manfred Stähli, who will tell us about a new initiative in the field of Landslide Early Warning Systems (LEWS), which is attracting the attention and participation of researchers from many countries. This initiative is called LandAware. Manfred is a senior scientist in mountain hydrology, slope stability and early warning systems a ...[Read More]
From caves explorer to landslides scientist: Fausto Guzzetti 2021 Soloviev Medal
Dr Fausto Guzzetti, current Research Director of the National Research Council (CNR) in Italy, has been awarded the 2021 Sergey Soloviev Medal for “his fundamental contributions to the field of natural hazards and his remarkable efforts to link the scientific community and civil protection authorities to mitigate risk for exposed populations”. From his passion for mountains and caves and his “hope ...[Read More]
2020: The escalation of extreme rainfall events in Brazil
In summer 2020, extreme rainfall events dumped up to 320 mm of rain in a single day in the Baixada Santista metropolitan region, São Paulo state, breaking Brazil’s record for the biggest rainfall in a single event and demonstrating one of the greatest threats of climate change. The damage caused by the associated landslides led to dozens of fatalities and hundreds of homeless people, as well ...[Read More]
Climate Change: is Viticulture under threat?
In the afternoon of August 29, 2020, an intense supercell, which is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a deep, persistently rotating updraft, affected the province of Verona in the north of Italy (Figure 1). It was not the first event of this kind; several other events, including tornado episodes, had already occurred during summer 2020. Here the video of the downburst recorded during ...[Read More]