ECI Digital Archives

June 18-21, 2006 - Lillehammer, Norway

The articles for these proceedings are not peer-reviewed.

"Geohazards" are events caused by geological features and processes that present severe threats to humans, property and the natural and built environment. Earthquakes, floods, landslides, volcanoes, avalanches and tsunamis are typical examples of such events. Landslides, caused by heavy rainfall, flood, earthquake, erosion, and human activities, are the most common geohazards on land. On land and offshore, geological processes, earthquakes and human activities, for instance in connection with offshore petroleum exploration and production, can trigger slides and large mass flows. In terms of number of fatalities, earthquakes and floods are often considered the most important geohazards, although much of the damage is caused by the slides and large mass flows triggered by them. Tsunami is another type of geohazard that is relatively rare, but as the recent tragic event in the Indian Ocean showed, can have devastating consequences.

There is an urgent need to improve our basic understanding of the technical, financial and social risks posed by geohazards, the relationships between those risks, and our ability to deal with them. The need is accentuated by increased sliding and flooding in many regions, increased concern for geohazards in production and transport of oil and gas and increased vulnerability of major urban areas to earthquakes because of rapid growth of urban centers with little or no regard to proper construction of residential buildings and land use planning.

Furthermore, climate research indicates that one can expect more extreme weather in the future, leading to increased flooding, landslides, erosion, scour, and rockfalls due to melting of ice and permafrost thaw.

The World Disasters Report 2005 (Canadian Red Cross) estimated that in 2004, over 250,000 were reported killed by natural disasters—mostly from the Indian Ocean tsunami in December. Disasters affected 146 million persons and inflicted estimated damage of US$ 100-145 billion. From 1995 to 2004, about 6,000 reported disasters killed over 900,000, affected over 2.5 billion persons, and caused at least US$ 738 billion in estimated damage (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, Belgium). This compares to 640,000 reported killed and 1.74 billion reported affected by natural disasters from 1985 to 1994. Over the decade, 51 people died per natural disaster event in countries of high human development (as defined by United Nations Development Program), compared to 573 deaths per event in countries of low human development.

The conference in Lillehammer was a round table for engineers, geo-scientists, social scientists, public authorities and insurance companies to discuss the human, environmental and economical consequences of geohazards. The papers presented at the conference and the discussion during the conference showed that better communication and dialogue among expert from different disciplines is the key to finding viable strategies for mitigation of risks caused by geohazards. The papers and discussions in the conference covered the following topics:

• Points of view from public authorities, engineers and geoscientists and insurance companies
• Economic aspects
• Social and human dimensions
• Risk assessment and management as a decision-support tool for dealing with the risks posed by geohazards
• Presentation of new concepts, research and case studies
• Impacts of climate change (sensitivity of hazards, risk to future climate changes)
• New techniques in geohazard assessment and mitigation

The conference proceedings start with papers dealing with technical risks and related issues (landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, remote sensing, early warning, and climate change). These are followed by papers addressing financial risks and finally those dealing with social risks. The comments received from the participants suggest that the interdisciplinary format of the conference was a great success, and should be continued in future conferences.

Examples of comments received from participants:

• I have enjoyed very much the conference and my short stay in Norway. The only negative side is I wish I had more time to visit. Maybe some day in the future. I would also like to thank you for your warm welcome and for the conference organization. It was a great learning experience and I appreciated the opportunity to discuss with people working in so many different aspects of geohazards.
    Marc Smith, Hydro Québec, Montréal, Canada
• Thank you very much for the excellent organization at the recent ECI meeting in Lillehammer.
    Eser Durukal, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
• It was a pleasure to join your conference. Thank you very much, indeed!
    Carsten Felgentreff, Universität Osnabrück, Germany
• I am writing to thank you for the great organizational effort you put for Geohazards 2006, the choice of location and timing, and arranging for the visit to NGI.
    Costas Synolakis, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA
• I want to thank you for this fantastic conference. It was really exciting to meet with the experts from all over the world.
    Stefan Eder, ILF Consulting Engineers, Innsbruck, Austria