Introduction

Disasters and landslide impact

Disasters are indeed a major issue on the international agenda since their impact on the social, economic, and environmental spheres continues to rise. Global figures suggest that since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, 1.3 million deaths have occurred in addition to 4.4 billion people affected and economic losses as high as $2 trillion. In China, for example, 2.2 billion inhabitants were affected by disasters, economic losses in the USA reached US$560 billion, and in Haiti, one of the most vulnerable nations on the planet, 230,675 casualties occurred (UNISDR 2012).

Social and economic damages associated with landslide disasters have not been adequately quantified (Alcántara-Ayala 2008; Kirschbaum et al. 2010; Petley 2012). Quite frequently, landslides are triggered by natural mechanisms such as rainfall, seismicity and, to a lesser extent, volcanic activity. For that reason, measuring their impact with great accuracy has become a difficult endeavor since data statistics regularly express the effects of multi-hazard events (e.g., earthquake-landslides and floods-landslides) and there is very limited account of specific landslide consequences (Alcántara-Ayala 2014).

Notwithstanding the lack of certainty in landslide disasters data, it is important to recognize their significance due to human and economic losses as well as their environmental impact. According to the EM-DAT database (OFDA/CRED Database), during the period 1900–2011, landslide disasters have caused more than 64,000 deaths. The largest number of people affected by landslides has been in Asia, followed by the Americas, Europe, and Africa, respectively. During the period 2000 to 2011, the population affected by landslides worldwide amounted to 4,041,000 people; in other words, one third of the total number of people was affected by natural hazards since 1900.

Examples of large landslide disasters integrated in the EM-DAT database included significant cases taking place in Latin America, particularly in Peru and Honduras. In December 1941, in Huaraz, Peru, about 25 % of the city was destroyed and casualties reached ~5,000 people as a debris flow was caused by an unexpected failure of a moraine dam at Laguna Cohup, Peru (Schuster et al. 2002). Interestingly enough, some decades later, the devastating episode of the mass movement of 1970 in Yungay and Ranrahirca (Oliver-Smith 1979; Evans et al. 2009) was included in the database in terms of the triggering mechanism, seismic activity, but not as a landslide event. Moreover, in Honduras on 20 September 1973, numerous flash floods and mudslides triggered by the rainfall from the hurricane Fifi involved ~2,800 casualties (OFDA/CRED Database).

Contrastingly, if a more detailed account of small and medium size landslide disasters is considered, data collected in the Desinventar database (La RED 2012) clearly illustrate the significance of landslide disasters for many of the Latin-American countries. Accordingly, for countries including Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela during the period 1970–2011, there were ~34,500 deaths, 19,253 injured people, in addition to 885,000 homeless people (Alcántara-Ayala 2014). A detailed account of these disasters is beyond the scope of this paper. Nonetheless, issues related to land use changes and land tenure pressure and conflicts, the establishment of—formal and informal—settlements on unstable slopes associated with urban migration and growth, deforestation, lack of planning, and relevant policy, among other factors, are the main contributors to the social dimension of landslide vulnerability and risk, which is most commonly manifested through the occurrence of small and medium size landslide disasters.

International collaboration

The ICL

The International Consortium on Landslides (ICL), formed in January 2002, founded, a year later, a Cooperation Program on Landslide Risk Mitigation for Society and the Environment with the support of UNESCO and the Kyoto University UNITWIN Network (University Twining and Networking). ICL established the International Program on Landslides (IPL) by adopting the 2006 Tokyo Action Plan with the support of seven global stakeholders. Promotion of IPL has taken place since 2006 through a Memorandum of Understanding with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Meteorological Organization, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), the United Nations University (UNU), the International Council for Science (ICSU), and the World Federation of Engineering Organizations.

During the ICL 10th anniversary meeting in Kyoto, Japan in January 2012, the ICL Strategic Plan 2012–2021 was adopted. As a an international nongovernmental- and nonprofit-making scientific organization, ICL aims to promote landslide research for the benefit of society and the environment and capacity building, including education, notably in developing countries. Additionally, the strategic plan includes integrating geosciences and technology within the appropriate cultural and social contexts in order to evaluate landslide risk in urban, rural, and developing areas including cultural and natural heritage sites, as well as to contribute to the protection of the natural environment and sites of high societal value. Combining and coordinating international expertise in landslide risk assessment and mitigation studies and promoting a global, multidisciplinary programme on landslides are regarded as a significant challenge.

ICL Latin-American network

ICL has established five thematic and three regional networks to promote the thematic and regional activities of the ICL and IPL. One of the three regional networks is the ICL Latin-American Network (ICLLAN). ICLLAN aims to (a) setting up a database of experts on landslides in the region, (b) identifying the areas of landslide expertise of the participants, (c) establishing a program of necessities and priorities to be addressed for the region, (d) organizing a summer/autumn/winter school of landslides for young students/researchers and different landslide workshops, (e) strengthening activities associated with landslide capacity building within universities and governmental institutions, and (f) facilitating scientific support during and after landslide disasters.

ICLLAN is committed to strengthening collaboration among Latin-American countries in the field of integrated disaster risk research on landslides from a multi- and transdisciplinary approach. Part of that commitment has been translated into action by means of organizing an international workshop on forensic disaster investigations applied to landslides.

ICSU-integrated research for disaster risk

In the past decade, natural- and human-induced hazards have been recognized as a scientific field of priority by the ICSU. For that reason, both scoping and multidisciplinary planning groups were formed in order to consider the creation of a new research program on natural- and human-induced environmental hazards. Consequently, the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) governed by a Scientific Committee was set up in 2008, with the International Social Science Council and the UNISDR as its main cosponsors (IRDR 2011, 2013).

IRDR is an international and interdisciplinary research program addressing the better understanding of hazards, vulnerability, and risk. It aims at development of transdisciplinary, multisectorial alliances for in-depth, practical research on disaster risk reduction studies and the implementation of effective evidence-based disaster risk policies and practices. Its major goals are (1) promoting integrated research, advocacy, and awareness raising; (2) characterizing hazards, vulnerability, and risk; (3) understanding decision making in complex and changing risk contexts; (4) reducing risk and curbing losses through knowledge-based actions; (5) networking and network building; and (6) research support (IRDR 2011, 2013).

FORIN

Disasters are not natural. However, a considerable number of disaster investigations are still concentrated either on hazards or vulnerability. The IRDR-Forensic Investigations of Disasters (FORIN) working group has established different scientific objectives, among which, “changing paradigms by shifting responsibility from nature the physical environment and distributing it accordingly to real circumstances and conditions involving all sectors of society including the individual and the collective,” can be regarded as a challenging goal towards achieving a more realistic framework for disaster risk reduction.

The FORIN model comprises four major methodological standardized but flexible approaches to understand the social construction of risk: (a) critical cause analysis, (b) meta-analysis, (c) longitudinal analysis, and (d) scenarios of disaster. By incorporating these perspectives, FORIN aims to comprehend the fundamental causes of disasters and to engage any and all types of specialists needed to undertake multi- and transdisciplinary risk investigations (Burton 2010; IRDR 2013).

Beyond natural hazards per se, the magnitude of disasters is a function of the vulnerability of the exposed population. Therefore, understanding the social construction of disasters is of great importance. FORIN is an innovative methodology focused on the comprehension of root causes of disasters and actual risks. The methodology was created by a group of specialists aiming to explain that disasters are not of natural (Maskrey 1993) but of social origin. A series of approaches are proposed within FORIN to understand more deeply the underlying complex dimensions of disaster causation in space and time, as well as the impacts on society. FORIN can be either totally or partially applied to research, management or decision making within the disaster reduction, and integrated disaster risk reduction contexts.

Bridging the gaps: the international workshop on FORIN associated with landslides

From June 26th to July 4th, the first international workshop on FORIN associated with landslides was held in the University of Sciences and Arts of Chiapas (Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas-UNICACH) in the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico.

The opening ceremony took place on Wednesday June 26th (Fig. 1). The welcoming speech was made by Roberto Domínguez-Castellanos, Rector of the UNICACH, authorities from the National Civil Protection System and the Institute of Civil Protection of Chiapas, and the Ministries of Environment and Science and Technology participated in the inauguration of the workshop. A series of three lectures were given immediately after the official opening. Enrique Guevara, Director of the National Centre for Disaster Prevention (CENAPRED), spoke on public policy on integrated risk management in Mexico. Silvia G. Ramos Hernández’s lecture dealt with advances and challenges of seismic and volcanic monitoring for risk management in Chiapas and Irasema Alcántara-Ayala gave a presentation on integrated research on disaster risk.

Fig. 1
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Inauguration of the international workshop, Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico. From right to left, Anthony Oliver-Smith, Silvia Ramos, Enrique Guevara, Luis Madrigal Frías, Roberto Domínguez-Castellanos, Irasema Alcántara-Ayala, Mario Antonio González Puón, and Carlos Daza

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Twenty-five young scientists from different Latin-American countries including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela attended the workshop. The scientific backgrounds of participants included fields in both natural and social sciences, among them are engineering, geology, geophysics, geography, anthropology, politics, architecture, sustainable development, planning, and environmental sciences. The gender balance was close to even with 13 males and 12 females (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
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Participants of the first international workshop on forensic investigations of disasters (FORIN) associated with landslides, Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico

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Workshop activities included a series of lectures (Fig. 3), presentations of individual projects, working groups, interviews with local media (Fig. 4), fieldwork (Fig. 5), and final project proposals. Study cases included the disasters of Yungay, Perú, 1970; hurricane Mitch in Honduras, 1998; hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, 2005; and the earthquake of Haiti, 2010, among others. Theoretical aspects of the social construction of disasters, vulnerability, landslide hazard, field evaluation of landslides, displacement and resettlements, risk reduction, and integrated research on disaster risk were the major topics of the workshop.

Fig. 3
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Teaching activities: Dr. Roberto Barrios, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Carbondale

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Fig. 4
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Interviews to local media were also a significant activity of the international workshop

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Fig. 5
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Landslippage in La Cueva del Jaguar, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, México

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The workshop was sponsored by the ICSU and the International Geographical Union. It was supported by the ICSU’s IRDR program, the ICSU Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Mexican Academy of Sciences, the International Consortium on Landslides, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the University of Sciences and Art of Chiapas, and the CENAPRED.

Conclusion

The work envisaged within the disaster risk reduction context focuses on the need to develop and implement integrated landslide research for disaster risk from a multi- and transdisciplinary approach considering that scientific achievements must be visibly useful for societies. Understanding risk and investigating the natural and social dimensions of disasters are critical processes for disaster risk reduction. Integrated risk research should be regarded as a key factor for sustainable development since disasters quite frequently have become an obstacle to development, particularly in vulnerable countries exposed to multiple hazards. As such, strengthening capacity building and promoting integrated disaster risk research on landslides would help to increase resilience and awareness in the Latin-American region.