Slope Safety Preparedness for Impact of Climate Change

Many countries are increasingly threatened by major landslide disasters and fatalities due to extreme weather events which have major implications for public safety and the sustainability of infrastructure and the built environment. A further increase in such a trend could come from climate change.

This book helps to fill in the gap due to the fact that landslide hazards are commonly not covered under the policy debate on climate change. The book highlights the importance of raising awareness to the challenges of landslide hazards due to climate impact. It provides a holistic frame for understanding the key issues and new tools that could be used to assess and manage the landslide risks.

The book gathers contributions from 21 countries and regions in the form of national reports or summaries with respect to four key aspects: a) the methods used for evaluating changing weather and changing landslide patterns; b) the changing weather patterns; c) the changing landslide patterns and hazard scenarios; d) the applications to risk management and the formulation of adaptation measures.

Recommendations are made for enhanced preparedness and resilience. Improved crisis management and areas for future work are suggested.

Mr. Ken Ho obtained his BSc in civil engineering and his MSc in soil mechanics and engineering seismology, both from Imperial College London. He is currently the Deputy Head of the Geotechnical Engineering Office of the Hong Kong Government and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Hong Kong. He is also a core member of Joint Technical Committee JTC1 on Landslides under the auspices of the Federation of International Geo-engineering Societies (FedIGS) on Natural Slopes and Landslides, and has previously served as a core member of ISSMGE Technical Committee TC304 on Engineering Practice in Risk Assessment and Management. Ken has published over 100 papers on slope engineering, quantified risk assessment, earthquake, piling and deep excavations. He has presented a number of keynote papers and state-of-the-art papers at various international conferences. He is also the editor of several international conference proceedings and serves on the editorial boards of a number of geotechnical journals.

Dr. Suzanne Lacasse was educated in Civil Engineering at Ecole Polytechnique of Montréal and MIT. She was Managing Director of the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) from 1991 to 2011, and now acts as Technical Director at NGI. She gave the 37th Terzaghi Lecture on Offshore Geotechnics in 2001 and the 55th Rankine Lecture on Hazard, Risk and Reliability in Geotechnical Practice in 2015. Dr Lacasse received PhD's Honoris Causa from the University of Dundee and from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineers in the USA, Canada, Norway and France. She is Honorary Professor at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, and Chair of the Slope Safety Technical Review Board in Hong Kong. She has given keynote lectures in over 30 countries, and is the author of over 300 scientific papers.

Professor Luciano Picarelli was educated in Civil Engineering at Università di Napoli and is cururently full professor of Soil Mechanics at the Department of Civil Engineering, Design, Home Building and Environment, Seconda Università di Napoli. He has been Director of the Research Centre for Environment Engineering and Chairman of the Council of Professors in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Luciano is Chair of the Joint Technical Committee Natural Slopes and Landslides of the Federation of International Geo-engineering Societies, Associate Editor of the journal Landslides and member of the Great Risks Committee of the National Department of Civil Protection in Italy. He has been editor of several special issues of international journals and proceedings of conferences, and keynote lecturer at numerous scientific events. He is author of over 200 scientific papers and chapters of books. Luciano Picarelli was awarded the 2008 Croce Lecture, the 2015 Šuklje Lecture, the 2014 Varnes medal and the prize for best paper published in Landslides in 2014.