Abstract
The International Consortium on Landslides proposed the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025 for global promotion of understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk at the session “Underlying risk factors” of the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in the morning of 16 March 2015, in Sendai, Japan. The proposal was accepted and signed by 16 United Nations, international and national organizations in the afternoon of the same day in a Japanese restaurant “Junsei”, Sendai, Japan. This article describes the background and content of the Partnerships including example of major landslide disaster in the world with the full text of the partnerships and the list of signatory organizations.
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Keywords
- Landslides
- International Consortium on Landslides (ICL)
- International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (ISDR)
- World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR)
Introduction
Part 1 ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025 describes: 1.1 The ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025: Background and Content, 1.2 Three selected forum lectures as examples of recent landslide research as the scientific base of the partnerships, 1.3 Contributions from signatory organizations of the Sendai Partnerships as basic information for the high-level panel discussion for Strengthening Intergovernmental Networks and the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) for “ISDR-ICL SENDAI PARTNERSHIPS 2015–2025 for global promotion of understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk”, 1.4 One of the contributions from ICL to the Partnership “Landslide Dynamics-ISDR-ICL Landslide Interactive Teaching Tools (LITT)”, 1.5 The planned common platform for landslide case reports for the promotion of cooperation.
This chapter presents a visual overview of some landslide disasters around the world to the wider communities that are partly involved in landslide disaster risk reduction, showing first the significance of the Partnerships, then the background of the Partnerships and the full content of the partnerships.
Examples of Landslide Disasters Around the World
“Landslide disasters are caused by exposure to hazardous motions of soil and rock that threaten vulnerable human settlements in mountains, cities, coasts, and islands” (from the Sendai Partnership Resolution). When large-scale landslides have occurred and caused major disasters, they are reported. When small scale-landslides have occurred and caused disasters in urban areas in National capitals or Provincial capitals such as Hiroshima city in Japan and Ha Long city in Vietnam (introduced in the Preface), those are reported. However, small-scale landslides that killed people living in a few houses in rural areas are not always recorded in many countries. Both the number and frequency of small-scale landslides are some order of magnitude higher than that of large-scale landslides. To achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals No. 11 “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”, disaster reduction should be fostered by “the development of people-centered early warning technology for landslides with increased precision and reliable prediction both in time and location, especially in a changing climate context” (from the Sendai Partnership Resolution) and by applying it to rural areas as well as urban areas.
Unfortunately, small-scale landslides occur in many places and so frequently that they are neither remarked nor recorded, in contrast with the cases of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and typhoons/hurricanes. However, big landslide disasters are reported and may be found in Wikipedia or other sources on the internet.
Definition of landslides have varied around the world. As a voluntary commitment to the International Decade of Natural Disaster Reduction (1990–2000), the landslide-related communities in the International Geotechnical Societies and UNESCO established a working party for the World Landslide Inventory to establish a definition of landslides. The discussed result was published in “Landslide Types and Processes” by David Cruden and David Varnes in Landslides—Investigation and Mitigation, Transportation Research Board, US National Research Council in 1996. In order to disseminate this new definition and classification of landslides, including debris flows, earth flows, rock falls, rock toppling and other types of very slow to very rapid movements of rock, debris or soils, the Landslide Handbook—A Guide to Understanding Landslides was edited as an International Programme on Landslides IPL 106 Best Practice handbook for landslide hazard mitigation (2002–2007), and it was published by U.S. Geological Survey in 2008. This handbook with many illustration and photographs, has been translated and published in Portuguese and Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese. This project received the IPL Award for Success at the 2nd World Landslide Forum at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) headquarters in Rome, Italy.
As a contribution to the Sendai Partnerships, ICL are editing the Landslide Dynamics: ISDR-ICL Landslide Interactive Teaching Tools (LITT) (two volumes of around 1600 pages) for capacity development necessary as a key component of Sendai Partnerships. The revised landslide handbook “Landslide types: Description, illustration and photos” including more illustrations and photos and “Landslide Dynamics for risk reduction” for the assessment of landslide initiation and motion are written and included as the fundamental part of the Landslide Interactive Teaching Tools (LITT), which is introduced in this volume.
Landslide researchers know major landslide disasters, and showing some examples to scientists, engineers, and policy makers who are partly involved to landslide risk reduction efforts is useful. Table 1 presents an outline of major landslide disasters in the world.
Examples of Large-Scale Landslides and Their Disasters Around the World
Photos and summary information is presented on several large-scale landslides in which the depth of the sliding surfaces are the order of 10 to 100 meters. Those differ from small-scale shallow landslides, in which the depth of sliding surfaces of the initial landslides are a few meters (as presented in the Preface) (Fig. 1).
The author investigated (1) Mayuyama landslide-tsunami disaster, (7) Las Colinas earthquake-induced landslide, (8) Leyte rainfall + earthquake induced landslide, and (12) Potential landslides in Machu Picchu. The author visited (2) Vajont landslide, (5) Salerno landslides-debris flows, (11) Usoy earthquake-induced landslide and the landslide-dammed Lake Sarez. The author did not visit (3) Huascaran debris avalanche, (4) Nevado del Ruiz debris flow, (6) Vargas debris flow, (9) Uttarakhand landslide-debris flows and floods, or (10) Badakhshan mudslides. The cases of (3), (4), (6), (9) are indirect information from Wikipedia (2016.10.3) below and other websites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides#1976.E2.80.932000.
Background of the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015 -2025
The very beginning of ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships came from the foundation of ICL in January 2002 which UNISDR supported and sent its delegate. The concept of an ICL contribution to the post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction started from the 10th anniversary Conference on 17–20 January 2012 in Kyoto, Japan, with financial support from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). Participants reviewed the first decade of ICL and IPL activities and examined the second decade of ICL-IPL activities. As a result, ICL Strategic plan 2012–2021—To create a safer geoenvironment was adopted. This conference approved the establishment of four regional networks and five thematic networks of ICL to expand the activities of ICL members and cooperation with non-ICL members in the specific region and themes. ICL organized the ICL-IPL Conference in Kyoto, Japan in 2013 with financial support from JST. At this conference, ICL discussed and prepared the 20014 Beijing Declaration to be adopted in the World Landslide Forum 3 in Beijing, China on 2–6 June 2014. Furthermore ICL examined and drew up the draft of ICL-IPL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025—Landslide disaster risk reduction for a safer geo-environment to be examined in Sendai, Japan, in March 2015. The 2004 Beijing Declaration—Landslide mitigation toward a safer Geoenvironment was examined in the high-level panel discussion with the participation of the Director-General of UNESCO Ms Irina Bokova and was adopted at the end of WLF3 in Beijing, China, which was held on 2–6 June 2014 (Fig. 2).
ICL organized the Steering Committee meeting in Kyoto on 7–9 October 2014, together with the International Forum “Urbanization and Landslide Disaster”—Hiroshima landslide disaster in August, 2014 and Japan’s contribution to the Post-2015 framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. This forum, together with the ICL Steering Committee meeting, was planned as a preparatory meeting for the ICL-IPL Sendai Partnerships Conference on 11–15 March 2015. Key members of ICL, UNESCO, UNISDR, MEXT, and the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), Government of Japan attended and discussed the global collaborative framework contributing to the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction.
The ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025
The signing ceremony of the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships was organized in a Japanese Restaurant “Junsei” in Sendai, Japan from 12:00–13:30 on 16 March 2015. 16 intergovernmental, international and national organizations signed the Sendai Partnerships. The heads of some organizations attended and signed there, some organizations nominated an officer in-charge of disaster reduction to sign the documents, while some organizations signed it in advance and sent a representative to bring the signed partnerships to this signing ceremony. Following are the organizations which agreed and signed the Sendai partnerships on 16 March 2015. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) signed the Sendai Partnerships on 15 April 2016. ICL took 6–8 months to obtain the signatures from seven global stakeholders (UNESCO, WMO, FAO, UNISDR, UNU, ICSU and WFEO) for the Letter of Intent aiming to provide a platform for a holistic approach in research and learning on ‘Integrated Earth System Risk Analysis and Sustainable Disaster Management’ after WCDR in 2005 and also exchange MoUs with each of the same global stakeholders to promote the 2006 Tokyo Action Plan—Strengthening Research and Learning on Landslides and Related Earth System Disasters for Global Risk Preparedness. ICL planned to establish the Sendai Partnerships during the 3rd WCDRR in Sendai, Japan. Figure 3 shows the memorial photo after signing the Sendai Partnerships in a Japanese restaurant “Junsei” in Japan.
The full text of the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships is show below as an appendix of this article. The partnerships are updated due to a change of ICL members and also signatory organizations. The objectives of partnerships will be better realized by new signatory organizations and new ICL members.
Call for Cooperation
ICL wishes to implement and develop this Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025 together with all organizations and individuals. We wish to invite those organization and individuals to join the high-level panel discussion and the round-table discussion on 30–31 May 2017 during the Fourth World Landslide Forum in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The information of the WLF4 is uploaded at https://www.wlf4.org/.
The information of the International Consortium on Landslides can be obtained from http://icl.iplhq.org/category/home-icl/.
Information on the International Programme on Landslides (IPL, a programme of the ICL for ISDR) can be obtained from http://iplhq.org/. All inquiries on ICL, IPL and the Sendai Partnerships should be addressed to ICL Secretariat secretariat@iclhq.org.
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Sassa, K. (2017). The ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025: Background and Content. In: Sassa, K., Mikoš, M., Yin, Y. (eds) Advancing Culture of Living with Landslides. WLF 2017. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59469-9_1
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