Malaysia faces substantial risks from rainfall-triggered landslides driven by extreme meteorological conditions. Between 1961 and 2024, the country recorded over , causing significant loss of life and economic damages exceeding $1 billion. This figure is set to rise in the future due to climate change and rapid urbanisation, leaving low-income households and small businesses highly vulnerable.

Whilst there are existing systems for monitoring and mapping these landslides, researchers have found a critical gap in understanding the economic losses landslides cause and how they can be systematically assessed to support anticipatory and disaster finance solutions for hazard recovery.

The project, β€˜Trigger index for rainfall-induced landslide risk assessment for enhanced resilience’ or TRIGGER, will see BGS and project partners and develop a landslide trigger index to support forewarning and rapid recovery. It will link past landslide losses with data on rainfall, ground conditions and the locations where communities and infrastructure assets are most exposed. This will help researchers and stakeholders to better understand the potential impacts of future extreme rainfall.

Through the TRIGGER project, we are linking up with colleagues in Malaysia to develop a landslide trigger index, to assist in better understanding the potential impacts of future extreme rainfall and help build resilience by enabling quicker recovery after disasters.

Dr Nikhil Nedumpallile-Vasu, BGS engineering geologist.

It is anticipated that this project will enable rapid, risk based, post-disaster financial relief, incentivise investment in resilient infrastructure, and support poverty reduction by protecting those most at risk. The project will offer a scalable model for other Indo-Pacific countries facing similar hazard profiles. 

Funding

The project is funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office through its β€˜β€™ programme, for innovative and effective climate adaptation and resilience projects.

Landslides cause significant disruption to the road and rail network across Great Britain and can lead to fatalities. Identifying active slope failure is a difficult task, as monitoring is costly and time consuming, especially at a national scale.

In collaboration with the University of Florence in Italy, BGS has used a new, semi-automated method that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify the slopes that are actively moving, highlighting areas potentially at risk.

Previously, BGS has used interferometric synthetic aperture radar, or InSAR, for monitoring landslides. One of the benefits of InSAR is the large amount of information available, especially at a national scale; but analysing all these data present a challenge for scientists. To help tackle this problem, we have developed a semi-automated method that combines a type of AI called machine learning with clustering tools. The benefit of this approach is that we can analyse data for the whole of Great Britain, which wouldn’t have been possible before.

Results from this recent analysis highlighted around 3000 slopes that showed consistent movement of over 2.5mm per year between 2018 and 2022. These actively moving slopes affect approximately 14000km of road and 360km of railway β€” 2.4per cent and 1per cent of the entire national network, respectively.

The slopes deemed unstable are not all linked to landslides. Rather, they show the areas that should be focused on not only for future landslide research and mapping but also for the effect on local infrastructure, such as buildings and roads.

Our new, semi-automated approach supports the work of landslide specialists and provides a practical solution for large-scale geohazard management. The tool has helped to classify more than 300000 slopes around the UK and has highlighted 3000 slopes that have moved in a four-year period.

Satellite InSAR data has enormous potential for understanding ground deformation, but its complexity and the volume of data require advanced automated tools to extract meaningful information. Our semi-automated method helps bridge this gap by identifying the most critical areas to focus on, enabling efficient monitoring and helping to prevent serious damage.

Dr Alessandro Novellino, BGS remote sensing geologist

This approach already provides a powerful disaster-management tool, allowing decision makers to quickly identify areas that are currently at risk from ground motion. By highlighting these vulnerable areas, it supports smarter prioritisation of detailed field surveys, maintenance, and mitigation strategies, reducing costs and improving safety.

Next steps will focus on refining this national-scale analysis by integrating more detailed topographical data, to move from identifying unstable slopes to automatically mapping individual landslides within those slopes. This will enable more precise classification of landslide types and extents and the likely triggering mechanisms. The results will be shared with key stakeholders, including local authorities, infrastructure owners and the Natural Hazards Partnership.

Camilla Medici, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florence

The research paper, , is now available to read.

Landslides are an ongoing global threat that can lead to significant loss of life and damage to infrastructure. The paper, β€˜β€™, describes a new geophysical method that enables a way of observing the subsurface to look for signs of underlying slope failure. Signs include moisture, suction and shear strength, which, when monitored, can provide earlier warning of hazard. The paper, led by BGS Honorary Research Associate (HRA) Arnaud Watlet with 16 co-authors β€” 10 of which are from BGS β€” has been awarded the 2024 British Geotechnical Association (BGA) medal for β€˜meritorious contributions to geotechnical science or practice’.

The research was undertaken at BGS Hollin Hill Landslide Observatory in Yorkshire. The slope at Hollin Hill features slow-moving, clay-rich land, common to much lowland landslide activity across the world. Change was monitored at the observatory over a two-year period, focusing on the wettest parts of each season. Researchers used electrical resistivity tomography and low-frequency distributed acoustic sensing to investigate the integrity of unstable slopes at various scales. Combining resistivity and fibre optics to observe changes in ground composition allowed for better monitoring and evaluation of natural and engineered slopes.

Landslides triggered by rainfall can significantly affect communities and infrastructure. Predicting exactly where and when they’ll occur is challenging, as local factors like geology, slope orientation and ground moisture all play a role. Most landslide early warning systems mainly track slope movement or rainfall intensity but, by monitoring ground moisture, we can extend the warning period at particularly vulnerable locations.

Arnaud Watlet, BGS HRA and lead author of the paper.

We are delighted to receive the BGA award, which recognises the incredible work and strong dedication of our team to landslide prevention.

Jim Whitely, BGS HRA and co-author of the paper.

First published in 2021, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) International Science Council (ISC) Hazard Information Profiles (HIPs) provide a trusted source of standardised hazard information for governments, agencies, researchers and educators. The latest iteration of the profiles spans over 280 hazards, split into eight hazard groups. Over the last two years, BGS scientists Dr Julia Crummy and Prof John Rees have coordinated the review of the geological HIPs. In addition to BGS hazard specialists, the review drew on international collaborators and partners, with over 50 experts involved.

UNDRR-ISC lead a review of the HIPs every three to five years to incorporate the latest research and user needs surveys are circulated to ensure they are useful, useable and used. BGS had a key role in the introduction of multi-hazards into the latest iteration, covering situations where multiple hazards occur simultaneously, consecutively, or cumulatively. Examples include an earthquake triggering a tsunami or intense rainfall causing flooding and landslides, which can in turn lead to non-geological hazards such as health hazards and technological failures.

The include a multi-hazard context section highlighting the need for consideration of hazard interactions for disaster risk management and early warning. Emphasis was placed on cross-referencing between single hazards and hazard groups, to highlight the potential interconnected relationships of many of the hazards included in the HIPs.

Coordinating the update of the geological HIPs has been an incredibly rewarding experience. We have spoken to hazard experts worldwide, strengthening existing relationships and building new ones to ensure that the profiles are the best they can be with the current state of knowledge.

Dr Julia Crummy, BGS Volcanologist

The HIPs were described as β€œgroundbreaking” in the 2023 Report of the Midterm Review of the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 and continue to be widely used by intergovernmental bodies, national governments, disaster management agencies, humanitarian organisations, private sectors, and academic institutions, fostering a more comprehensive and unified approach to disaster risk monitoring, recording, and planning.

The latest are available through the UNDRR PreventionWeb website.

The World Landslide Forum takes place every three years, with the first meeting held in Tokyo, Japan, in 2008, and sees the participation of over a thousand researchers from all over the world. The aim of the forum is to create a common platform to promote cooperation between scientists, technicians and experts to develop collaborative strategies to reduce the risk of landslides worldwide.

The sixth World Landslide Forum, which was titled ‘Landslide science for sustainable development’, took place this year in Florence, Italy, from Tuesday 14 to Friday 17 November 2023.

It was announced at the forum that BGS has been designated as a World Centre of Excellence on landslide risk reduction, along with 15 other institutes.

It was a great honour for BGS to receive this recognition, which is testament to the hard work and excellent science undertaken by our landslides team.

Prof Jonathan Chambers, BGS Head of Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation.

During the forum, the most important aspects relating to landslide research were addressed, following six thematic areas:

• monitoring and early warning
• modelling
• hazard and risk assessment
• mitigation techniques
• triggering mechanisms
• climate change

Multi-hazard risk and disaster risk management

Effects from disasters due to natural hazards have increased over time. Without effective (DRM), this trend will continue as exposure to natural hazards and the intensity and frequency of climate-related hazards become ever greater over this century.

Disaster risk is a product of , and . The ability to anticipate interactions and feedbacks between different components of DRM, along with their change over time, is a challenge for those involved.

• Multi-hazards can interact with each other, as one can trigger or amplify the likelihood of another

• Hazards can occur at the same time (compound events) or consecutively (cascade events)

• Mitigation of one hazard can change risk by increasing vulnerability to another: for example, raising a house on stilts to protect it from floods in a region prone to earthquakes can make it more vulnerable to ground shakin

The effects of hazards and their interactions can also affect multiple sectors and geographical scales, either directly or through β€˜knock-on’ effects: for example, damage to transport infrastructure that disrupts supply chains can result in business interruption. Ideally, risk assessments should be made using an approach that considers multi-hazards and risks across multiple different sectors, scales and timeframes. However, such approaches are not yet mainstream. A lot of risk research and policy continue to focus on single hazards and sectors, despite in the last couple of decades.

. This is something that the project wants to catalyse.

The MYRIAD-EU project

MYRIAD-EU, of which BGS is a partner, is a pan-European project made up of 18 different institutions, six of which represent different economic sectors. The project will co-develop the first integrated framework for multi-hazard, multi-sector and systemic risk management, alongside a suite of tools and services that will enable its adoption by risk managers and other decision makers.

To do this, the MYRIAD-EU partners are studying the links between different hazards and economic sectors in five pilot study regions of different geographical scales (Figure 1:

• the North Sea
• the Canary Islands
• Scandinavia
• the Danube region
• the Veneto region of Italy

Within each pilot region, work is focusing on understanding the relationships and dependencies between the different hazards the region is exposed to and at least three of the following economic sectors:

• infrastructure and transport
• food and agriculture
• ecosystems and forestry
• energy
• finance
• tourism

This knowledge is being used to develop forward-looking DRM pathways that address the particular challenges that have been identified for each of the regions. The diverse nature of the different pilots means that outputs will have applications across Europe.

The overall aim is to develop new products, services and solutions that better enable decision makers, policymakers and other risk practitioners to manage and reduce risk more effectively when the project ends in 2025. To ensure that the project outputs are useful and usable for real-world applications, MYRIAD-EU will work closely with stakeholders from different sectors and at different levels of engagement throughout the project lifetime.

Keeping up-to-date with MYRIAD-EU

To keep up-to-date with the project visit the , where you can register for alerts, or follow the .

Project outputs will be made available (open access) as they are completed on the and can be accessed via the platform or through links on the .

Project outputs

Recent outputs developed by BGS, in collaboration with project partners, include:

• a : this resource provides reference terminology and extended definitions related to concepts relevant to the project
• the : a crowdsourced wiki for discovering and sharing approaches to assessing and managing multi-(hazard risks), as well as terminology definitions. We welcome new contributions from across the disaster risk community.

Further reading

Ward, P J, et al. 2022. . Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, Vol. 22(4), 1487–1497. DOI:

Funding

About the author

The is an international film festival, uniting arts and science to showcase how our scientific understanding and knowledge of the Earth natural processes can support solutions to pressing global challenges.

The award-winning films were created as part of the Strengthening Resilience in Volcanic Areas (STREVA) project, led by Prof Jenni Barclay of the University of East Anglia (UEA), in collaboration with and researchers from UEA, Servicio GeolΓ³gico Colombiano and Universidad de Manizales.

The three short films tell the stories of those who survived the devastating eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Colombia on 13 November 1985, when an explosive eruption at the Arenas crater melted ice and snow at the summit of the volcano, sending volcanic mudflows known as lahars down the slopes, killing more than 25 000 people up 60 km from the summit.

The films are designed to resonate with people living alongside volcanoes elsewhere in Colombia and around the world. They address how it feels to live through a volcanic eruption and help to tackle some of the most important challenges and questions that people have about living alongside volcanic risk.

One survivor, Zarina Bocanegra, describes in the film how, on November 13 1985, they were sent home from school.

We were in school and in the afternoon, ash began to fall, so they sent us home. At the beginning we were dealing with it as a joyful thing, so we started playing with the ash because we didn’t know the magnitude of what was about to happen. Or what was about to come.

Zarina Bocanegra, Nevado del Ruiz eruption survivor.

51ΑΤΖζ scientists Dr Anna Hicks and Dr Susan Loughlin have been involved in the STREVA project since its inception in 2012.

This set of films was created by an incredible research project called Strengthening Resilience in Volcanic Areas, which set out to understand volcanic hazards and their processes and, importantly, the risk and effects for lives and livelihoods.

It wonderful that, in 2022, the films are being recognised internationally. This award is testament not only to our incredible filmmakers at Lambda and our international partners, but also to our amazing storytellers, who shared their memories and insights that so uniquely depict their experiences of one of Earth many tragic disasters.

These films are dedicated to those who died in the tragic events of November 1985.We would urge everyone to watch for a better understanding of how we can build resilience to all hazards and risks, not only volcanic ones, and the way in which past experiences can inform our preparations and behaviour in future.

Dr Anna Hicks, BGS Volcanologist.

was an innovative interdisciplinary project that worked collaboratively across different disciplines between 2012 to 2019 to develop and apply a practical and adaptable means to analyse risk.

Led by the University of East Anglia (UK), the STREVA projectsuccessfully brought together diverse researchers from universities and research institutes from within the UK and from those areas affected directly by volcanic activity. New information was used to generate new knowledge, which informs plansdesigned to reduce the negative consequences of volcanic activity on people and assets.

In addition to the Nevado Del Ruiz in Colombia trilogy, the STREVA team have also developed a series of collaborative films with international partners to better understand how people think about living with volcanoes, how they respond in an eruption when emotions are at their highest, and how communities recover. Earlier films, produced in collaboration with the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Centre (SRC), helped to share stories of the 1979 eruption of the La Soufrière volcano in St Vincent and the Grenadines, which erupted again in 2020 with no casualties.

The work formed part of a scientific study, , which used the films as a basis to analyse how digital tools can help to engage communities to tell their stories, thus informing populations at risk to catalyse action to reduce risk.

The creation of disaster-resilient communities is partly dependent upon strategies to effectively communicate hazard and risk.

Results from our survey, group discussions and reflections from project partners provide evidence that both the films and, more importantly, the act of participating in the film-making process were successful in promoting social learning. They helping motivate people to actively seek hazard and risk information, empowered people to turn that new knowledge into risk-reducing actions, and strengthened the resilience of individuals, communities and institutions who manage risk.

Dr Anna Hicks.

Local screenings of the films took place in 2015 and the trilogy was among an impressive 972 films from 89 countries submitted to this year Earth Science Festival. Each was carefully considered by a team of expert judges over a number of months. The festival culminated in a live-streamed awards ceremony on Saturday 15 October 2022, at the Australian Museum in Sydney.

The trilogy was created with funds from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), with support from the University of East Anglia Impact Fund.