Irasema Alcántara-Ayala

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at National Autonomous University of Mexico

http://www.nature.com/news/global-risks-pool-knowledge-to-stem-losses-from-disasters-1.17751

GAR2022 explores how, around the world, structures are evolving to better address systemic risk. The report shows how governance systems can evolve to reflect the interconnected value of people, the planet and prosperity. www.undrr.org/gar2022

Mountains are highly significant regions in the context of climate change and sustainable development, at the intersection of accelerated warming and a large population depending directly or indirectly on them. They are regions of high biological and cultural diversity and provide vital goods and services to people living in and around mountain reg...

News/Kyoto Commitment

This article evaluates the integration of disaster risk reduction strategies within the educational framework of Nicaragua, with a particular emphasis on children’s exposure to landslides and their vulnerability to climate-induced disasters. A comprehensive multi-stage methodology combines geospatial modelling, demographic analysis, and risk assess...

This study aimed to understand landslide risk perception among 15 to 20-year-old students in Teziutlán, Puebla, from 2018 to 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period in which communicating risks and providing information to the public were of utmost significance. The research involved a quantitative approach, using structured questionnaires to m...

This article investigates the multifaceted dimensions to understand the interrelatedness among global change drivers and their implications for landslide hazards and disaster risk. Drawing on empirical research, it utilised a mixed-methods design; the research combined diverse data sources and experiential insights on the interdependencies bounded...

Understanding how individuals perceive and respond to the impact of diverse hazards such as landslides is crucial in effective disaster risk management. This is particularly significant in areas like Teziutlán, Puebla, Mexico, where landslides have historically occurred. This study aimed to understand the perception of landslide risk among students...

T he Open Access book series of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) aims to be the common platform for the publication of recent progress in landslide research and technology for practical applications and the benefit of society contributing to the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020, which is expected to continue up to 2030 and even beyon...

Disaster risk is increasing across the globe and more people, and their assets, are increasingly vulnerable and exposed to that risk. While some increases in the numbers can be attributed to improved data collection, they primarily reflect the current state of affairs. This elevated risk, which is a sign of a clear resilience gap, is leading to lar...

On September 19, 2017, in the middle of the day, an intraplate earthquake happened about 120 km from Mexico City at a depth of 57 km. The 2017 earthquake impacted single-family homes more than public infrastructure. Most residential neighbourhoods near the city centre were damaged, affecting working- and middle-class families the most. Many multi-s...

The adoption of diverse global frameworks linked to the 2030 Agenda and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), among them, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), convene a series of commitments and actions that help to strengthen integrated disaster risk management. Bringing together the expertise of transdi...

Nature-based solutions (NbS) have recently gained significant attention as a sustainable disaster risk reduction (DRR) approach. This article explores the application and effectiveness of NbS in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region, which is highly exposed to diverse hazards. Through a scoping literature review and analysis of case studies,...

In tropical regions such as Nicaragua, the population's vulnerability to hazards has escalated in recent decades. This increase in vulnerability has led to a surge in disasters, particularly those triggered by intense hurricanes. The implications at the national level are still poorly understood. The aim of this article has, therefore, been twofold...

The Open Access book series of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) aims to be the common platform for the publication of recent progress in landslide research and technology for practical applications and the benefit of society contributing to the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020, which is expected to continue up to 2030 and even beyond...

Nicaragua’s location in the tropics makes it highly susceptible to tropical cyclones, with 22 such events causing significant damage between 1971 and 2020. The attendant risk of landslides and flooding from heavy rainfall associated with these phenomena is a grave concern. However, the absence of consistent policies to progress scientific developme...

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the inhabitants of Mexico City. With over 9 million people living in 16 districts, infections and mortality rates varied greatly. In this article, demographic and socio-economic factors were analyzed to determine vulnerability and exposure to COVID-19 during the crisis from 27 February 2020 to 10 Ma...

Owing to the increasing impact of disasters worldwide, there is a recognised need for putting theory into relevant and effective practice in disaster risk reduction (DRR). Substantial research has been oriented on reducing loss of life, injury, livelihoods and infrastructure disruption. In this paper, we gathered the main insights derived from the...

Provides articles on the progress of landslide research and technology. Reviews landslide research and technology. Contains user-friendly teaching tools with extras online materials. This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access.

The International Consortium on Landslides, through the Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025 and the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020 for Global Promotion of Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk, aims to support the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. This involves various actions in which enhancing capacity bu...

This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access. Provides original articles reporting the progress of landslide research and technology. Reviews landslide research and technology in a thematic area of landslides. Contains user-friendly teaching tools with extras online.

In the 2020s, understanding disaster risk requires a strong and clear recognition of values and goals that influence the use of political and economic power and social authority to guide growth and development. This configuration of values, goals, power and authority may also lead to concrete drivers of risk at any one time. Building on previous di...

Integrated disaster risk management is crucial in reducing landslide risk. The International Consortium on Landslides has launched several initiatives to enhance research and practice in landslide risk management, including the Tokyo Action Plan 2006, the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025, and the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020. This article...

This article provides a chronological account of the occurrence and impact of tropical cyclones in Nicaragua between 1971 and 2020. While previous research has indicated potential associations between climate change and the higher frequency of intense hurricanes, no known empirical research has focused on systematizing the chronology of the signifi...

La utilización de los estudios de montaña requiere de narrativas integradoras para la geoalfabetización sobre paisajes socioecológicos productivos y motiva más investigaciones transdisciplinares en el campo de la montología. Concebimos este artículo como la confluencia de la experiencia individual y el razonamiento colectivo hacia la formación de g...

En el preludio de una celebración del Concilio Zombi, sus discípulos atraviesan por una situación que no comprenden. El castillo en el que se realiza la festividad está ubicado en una zona montañosa. Érebo y sus amigos, se enfrentan a transformaciones nunca vistas, y su futuro se ve amenazado. Los personajes de Érebo y las montañas movedizas viven...

This paper serves as an introduction to focus on the meaning of resilience as a notion that hypothetically enables cities and their citizens to remain unaffected by shocks and stresses of diverse nature, but in practice, is a parsimonious representation of a highly complex human endogenous condition that is often not adequately understood and addre...

Disasters triggered by landslides cause life losses and substantial devastation to communities in terms of effects on the economy, livelihoods, and infrastructure every year across the world. However, the causative factors and mechanisms underlying landslide initiation and dynamics must be better understood, as accurate modelling of landslide risk...

Early Warning Systems (EWSs) are considered one of the main mechanisms for disaster risk reduction (DRR). In this sense, several efforts have been made by the international science and technology community to support the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), giving special attention to the seventh global target...

The Open Access book series of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) aims to be the common platform for the publication of recent progress in landslide research and technology for practical applications and the benefit of society contributing to the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020, which is expected to continue up to 2030 and even beyond...

There is a growing body of literature that recognises the importance of warning systems to reduce landslide disaster risk and avoid the occurrence of disasters. Recent developments in landslide disasters around the world have heightened the need for the implementation of Landslide Early Warning Systems (LEWSs) particularly in low-and lower-middle-i...

Disasters in mountain systems affect sustainability through human, economic, and environmental losses. Although disaster risk is partially understood when analyzing mountain hazards, deeper insights into lowland-upland interactions in terms of vulnerability and exposure and the way disaster risk is amplified are fundamental to reduce disaster risk....

This chapter begins by giving a brief overview of the forces involved in the geodynamics of mountains and mountain ranges, including the processes needed for the generation of mass movement processes. In the remaining parts of this chapter, the following issues associated with mountain landslides are addressed: the anatomy of landslides, common lan...

Special emphasis has been given to the role Early Warning Systems (EWSs) can play as mechanisms for disaster risk reduction (DRR) around the globe. Along this line, the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) has promoted several efforts to create regional and global network initiatives that include, among other relevant activities, landslides...

After thirty-two years of the devastating earthquake in Mexico City in 1985, the city was again shaken by the consequences of the 7.1 Mw earthquake that struck central Mexico on September 19, 2017. The impact of the disaster nationwide was 369 deaths, 6000 injured, 256,000 total affected people, and damages in the order of US$ 6 billion. Although t...

Integrated disaster risk management (IDRM) is a complex and fundamental process for disaster risk reduction. Its achievement implies global compound challenges whose response must be implemented locally, but also formulated and pursued on sub-national, national and regional scales. In principle, it is oriented towards preventing new disaster risk,...

Purpose- The 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) constitute an overarching global milestone for creating a better sustainable future worldwide. The risk component of the agenda under the SFDRR must be better embedded into the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and integrating disast...

Integrated disaster risk management (IDRM) is a complex and fundamental process for disaster risk reduction. Its achievement implies global compound challenges whose response must be implemented locally, but also formulated and pursued on sub-national, national and regional scales. In principle, it is oriented towards preventing new disaster risk,...

This focus issue contributes to a better understanding of the dynamic and complex interconnections between hazards, underlying vulnerabilities, integrated disaster risk management, and resulting impacts in mountains, presenting insights on how to improve disaster management. It contains 8 peer-reviewed articles (3 MountainDevelopment articles, 2 Mo...

The text offers a comprehensive and unique perspective on disaster risk associated with natural hazards. It covers a wide range of topics, reflecting the most recent debates but also older and pioneering discussions in the academic field of disaster studies as well as in the policy and practical areas of disaster risk reduction. This book will be o...

As disasters cripple the world's prospects for sustainable development, protecting the most vulnerable groups exposed to hazards is one of the main challenges facing humanity. Owing to the systemic nature of risk and the interactions and interdependencies between upland and lowland systems, healthy and productive mountain households and livelihoods...

This paper gives an account of the diverse dimensions of research on disaster risk reduction in mountain regions derived from an open call of the Journal of Mountain Science that brought 21 contributions. This special issue includes topics as diverse as landslide dynamics and mechanisms, landslide inventories and landslide susceptibility models, in...

Earthquake early warning (EEW) is becoming a popular tool for mitigating earthquake‐induced losses. However, the current literature separates the EEW's technical components and their operational and behavioural implications. This paper investigates how EEW can be integrated into business continuity practices, organisational resilience, and disaster...

Between 1900 and 2019, there were 793 low-frequency, high-impact landslides related to disaster events worldwide. These accounted for 70,728 human lives lost and 14.5 million people affected. In addition to understanding the dynamics of landslides, this chapter advocates the comprehension of the main human dimensions of landslide hazards and the im...

Purpose The 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) constitute an overarching global milestone for creating a better sustainable future worldwide. The risk component of the agenda under the SFDRR must be better embedded into the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and integrating disaste...

Chinese version of FORIN, Forensic Investigations of Disasters Reference: 建议参考文献：A. Oliver-Smith, I. Alcántara-Ayala, I. Burton and A. M. Lavell (2016). Forensic Investigations of Disasters (FORIN): a conceptual framework and guide to research (IRDR FORIN Publication No.2). Beijing: Integrated Research on Disaster Risk. 56 pp.

The devastating 2015 earthquakes in Nepal highlighted the need for effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) in mountains, which are inherently subject to hazards and increasingly vulnerable to extreme events. As multiple UN policy frameworks stress, DRR is crucial to mitigate the mounting environmental and socioeconomic costs of disasters globally....

Governance is increasingly recognized as key to sustainability and human wellbeing in mountain social–ecological systems (MtSES). Mountains present particular challenges for effective governance related to their geographic complexities, status as commons, susceptibility to environmental change, and impacts of external political and socioeconomic pr...

There is a recognised need for bridging the gap between science and policy making aiming at the reduction of landslide disaster risk. A growing body of literature articulates the significance of scientific contributions on landslide risk assessment at different spatial-temporal scales. However, most studies in this field have mainly focused on land...

El 11 de marzo de 2020, la Organización Mundial de la Salud declaró el brote de la enfermedad por COVID-19 como una pandemia mundial. Más allá de los desafíos médicos y científicos para entender el virus SARS-CoV-2 como causante de dicha enfermedad y, por ende, desarrollar una vacuna para mitigar los efectos de su propagación, la crisis emanada ins...

The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. Beyond the medical and scientific challenges to understand the SARS-CoV-2 virus as the cause of this disease and develop a vaccine to mitigate the effects of its spread, the ensuing crisis makes it urgent to reflect on the meaning of this pandemic a...

The primary aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of scientific collaboration for landslide disaster risk reduction in Mexico. Drawing upon specific undertakings into applied research, this article attempts to outline the emerging role of the ICL World Centre of Excellence (WCoE) based in the Institute of Geography (IGg) of the National...

A year after the establishment of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (SFDRR), the science and technology community (STC) endorsed in Geneva the UNISDR Science and Technology Roadmap to Support the Implementation of the SFDRR 2015-2030 (STR-SFDRR). Conducted actions by the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) reflect...

On a global scale, from 2005 to 2019, there were 275 high-magnitude, low-frequency disasters that involved 14,172 fatalities and four million affected people. Similar patterns have taken place during longer periods of time in recent decades. This paper aims to analyse the contribution of the international landslide research community to disaster ri...

You can find the full paper in the following link: https://rdcu.be/cdwqD

This chapter focuses on group discussion sessions targeting the Priority Areas of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. Day one group discussion session efforts were on Priority Area One—Understanding Disaster Risks; and Day two emphasis was on Priority Areas 2, 3 and 4.

This research aimed to analyse the exposure of households and other buildings to landslides by means of community-based mapping in Huehueymico, a small rural locality of 884 inhabitants located in Teziutlán, Puebla, Mexico. Despite the severe impact of the disaster of October 1999 associated with rainfall induced landslides, there has been a lack o...

Owing to the nature of landslide triggering mechanisms, lack of realistic documentation on the impact of landslide disasters at global, national and subnational scales has existed for many years. Data from two sources was used to examine the discrepancies about the impact of landslide disasters by considering both, high magnitude-low frequency and...

Owing to landslide susceptibility of pyroclastic deposits, coupled with high vulnerability and exposure, the Sierra Norte de Puebla region, in Mexico, is characterised by significant levels of landslide disaster risk. This study aimed at evaluating landslide exposure of households in La Gloria neighbourhood, Teziutlán, Puebla, an area that was seve...

The Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) promotes basic and applied research to understand how drivers and processes of global change present challenges and opportunities in mountain social-ecological systems. It convenes a global network that collectively generates and synthesizes knowledge on global change in mountains that also supports decisions...

Notwithstanding the high societal impact of disasters in Mexico, there is a lack of integrated efforts to establish a sound policy for reducing disaster risk to counterbalance the existing concentrated endeavors in disaster management. In the face of such segmentation, the science and technology community has advocated for a change of perspective,...

Disaster risk management and climate change adaptation are integrated, interinstitutional, multisectoral, and interdisciplinary processes. They generally give rise to public policies with the same goals. It is not very appropriate to refer to slope instability or landslide adaptation in a general sense without alluding to disaster risk management....

Los procesos de remoción en masa son una de las amenazas geomorfológicas más importantes en México, debido a sus potenciales consecuencias como el desastre ocurrido en octubre de 1999 en las montañas de la Sierra Norte de Puebla, donde cientos de procesos de remoción ocasionaron graves daños a la población. El propósito de este estudio fue la recon...