Geohazards - Science topic

Dear Colleagues, Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a powerful tool for addressing complex challenges in geodesy. By leveraging AI methods and algorithms (ANNs, CNNs, SVM, RF, DT, KNN, ARIMA, XGBoost, ML, DL, and others), geodetic problems can be solved more efficiently and with greater precision. AI is becoming increasingly crucial for so...

zone, which faces increasing environmental challenges due to extensive human activities and climate change. The research employs remote sensing (RS), geographic information systems (GIS), land use and land cover (LU/ LC) change detection, watershed analysis, and fieldwork to assess both regional paleo-drainage systems and local basins. The findings...

This paper describes a geohazard study for a submarine cable passing through fjords with challenging soil conditions and highly variable bathymetry. The main geohazards evaluated included slope stability along the cable corridor and rockfall triggered by earthquakes. One-dimensional static, pseudo-static and displacement analyses along the cable co...

Subsurface urban heat island (SUHI) is a global phenomenon caused by warming up of the underground at a fast rate in densely-populated urban areas due to heat dissipation from surface structures. Exploring the potential hazards in the underground induced by SUHI has become crucial for developing resilient urban infrastructure with excess-heat mitig...

The M7.6 earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula in central Japan on January 1, 2024. Approximately 50 min later, a large-scale fire broke out in Kawai-machi, Wajima City. Despite investigations by the Fire and Disaster Management Agency (FDMA), the ignition source and process remained undetermined. This study hypothesizes that the fire may have origi...

Abstract: Objectives: On 8 February 2025 at 11:50 a.m. local time, a catastrophic landslide occurred in Jinping Village, Muoai Town, Junlian County, Yibin City, Sichuan Province, China, resulting in 10 fatality and 19 missing persons, attracting widespread national and international attention. Methods: This study preliminarily reveals the pre-failu...

The renewable energy transition has increased the demand for offshore construction in the Danish North Sea energy sector. This development underpins the need for further investigation of potential geological hazards and associated risks to avoid accidents involving people, the environment or infrastructure. A scientific approach to de-risking requi...

This study integrates field observations, structural analysis, and drillhole data to model the complex fault networks within Shizidun tungsten deposit in the central-northern Yangtze Block of South China Craton by using ArcGIS and Leapfrog software. Surface mapping revealed small-scale faults with diverse orientations, including ENE-, NW-, and N-S-...

Colombia is a country characterized by its geographical diversity and high vulnerability to natural hazards, such as landslides, debris flows, earthquakes, volcanic activity, hurricanes, and tsunamis. The convergence of tectonic plates and its mountainous topography significantly increase the risk of natural disasters. This article analyzes natural...

We developed a novel three‐dimensional magnetotelluric adaptive inversion algorithm optimized to interpret field datasets collected in realistic geological environments. Using a newly designed data‐driven indicator, it tends to enhance features in data‐sensitive regions and generate a set of multiscale inversion models with gradually increased reso...

Geohazards like landslides and debris flows cause havoc on communities and infrastructures, emphasizing the need for understanding granular mass flow kinematics and their impact dynamics with protective measures. Employing the Discrete Element Method (DEM), this study conducts virtual experiments of granular mass flow interacting with slit dams. In...

Submarine permafrost in the Canadian Beaufort Sea is relict terrestrial permafrost, which is continuously degrading since the change of thermal conditions induced by a marine transgression that followed the last glaciation. Permafrost degradation has a crucial socio‐ecological significance because its thawing can result in geohazards like landslide...

Landslides pose significant hazards in the mountainous region of Sikkim, India, necessitating accurate susceptibility mapping to mitigate risks. This study applies four machine learning models: Boosted Tree (BT), Gradient Boosting Machine (GBM), K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN), and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) to develop a detailed landslide susceptibilit...

A healthy ocean is crucial for a sustainable future. Universities play a key role in supporting societies to understand marine ecosystems, humanity’s impact on them, and how to uncover sustainable solutions. This practice‐based article examines how universities can enhance their societal impact by developing new organizational models that integrate...

Glacial lakes are characteristic landforms within many terrestrial proglacial landscapes. In addition to being very important reservoirs of glacial meltwater, glacial lakes are often reservoirs of glacial sediments in paraglacial sediment cascades and a potential source of geohazards such as glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). This PhD dissertati...

Sinkholes are geohazards that commonly form in karstifiable terrain and are an ever-present danger to infrastructure and human life. This paper aims to answer the question: Can a cover–subsidence sinkhole’s volume be determined using fibre Bragg grating sensor strain data and machine-learning techniques? Exploratory data analysis was conducted on f...

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) is an invaluable tool for deformation monitoring. However, potential geological disaster hazards occurring in different elevation regions exhibit distinct surface deformation trends and distributions. The applicability of InSAR techniques at different elevations for monitoring potential geohazards re...

Sediment transported to fjords is redistributed by turbidity currents and sometimes fails on steep sidewall slopes, forming marine geohazards that are known to impact infrastructure. Since marine geohazards are poorly understood in Arctic Fjords due to lack of data and monitoring, a comprehensive study of Southwind Fjord, Baffin Island, was underta...

Introduction Frequent geohazards along highways in the western Sichuan Plateau gradient zone severely constrain regional development. To clarify the spatial distribution laws and main drivers of highway geohazards is crucial for geohazard prevention and control. Methods This study analyzed 2230 geohazard sites within 3 km of 11 highways in the wes...

Taluses are widely distributed in alpine regions such as the Tibetan Plateau. Despite their critical environmental and geohazard roles, taluses have only been mapped in limited regions. This study presents an effective approach to identifying taluses by capturing their morphological features using deep learning (DeepLab V3+ with an attention mechan...

Submarine landslides pose significant risks to offshore infrastructure, such as seafloor telecommunication cables and oil and gas pipelines. To address geohazards associated with mass transport processes, it is crucial to understand the origin and behaviour of ancient mass transport complexes (MTCs). This study investigates the evolutionary stages...

This study explores the fundamental aspects of structural geology, with a particular focus on faults, folds, and traps-key geological structures that influence the deformation and distribution of rocks within the Earth's crust. Faults represent fractures along which movement has occurred, often associated with tectonic stresses and seismic activity...

Sediments provide valuable information for geologists and geophysicists whenever they strive to understand, and reproduce, the geological evolution, lithology, rock properties, seismic response, and geohazards of a region. The analysis of sedimentary sequences is thus useful for the interpretation of depositional environments, sea-level change, cli...

Urban ground deformation poses significant risks to structural stability and infrastructure resilience, necessitating advanced monitoring techniques. This study evaluates two critical structural deformation parameters-maximum lowering rate and maximum differential settlement-using Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) measurements from C...

Investigating the effect of gravity on the flow characteristics of granular materials is crucial for a deeper understanding of geological hazards on Earth and other celestial bodies. This research employs discrete element numerical simulation methods to systematically analyze the dynamic process of granular system collapse and flow under varying gr...

Landslides are one of the most severe geohazards globally, causing extreme financial and social losses. While InSAR time-series analyses provide valuable insights into landslide detection, mapping, and monitoring, AI is also implemented in a variety of geohazards, including landslides. In the present study, a machine learning (ML) landslide suscept...

A substantial proportion of long-distance oil and gas pipelines in China traverse active faults and high-risk areas characterised by intricate topographic and geological environments. These pipelines are susceptible to a range of safety concerns, exacerbated by the increasing frequency of strong earthquakes in recent years. To address this issue, a...

Introduction Landslides are a major geohazard in the northern Ethiopian highlands, causing significant damage to farmland, infrastructure, and settlements, with profound socio-economic consequences. This study aims to address the pressing need for enhanced natural hazard management by investigating landslide susceptibility in the Debek region of So...

Eastern Sicily is characterised by fast tectonic uplift, intricate GPS-derived velocity fields, and significant seismic activity. Mount Etna, the largest subaerial active volcano in Europe, dominates the landscape, influencing the development of large-scale instability processes on the facing continental margin. South of Etna, the Malta Escarpment...

Landslides are one of the most devastating geohazards that cause substantial loss of life and socio-economic damage in mountainous areas worldwide every year. Landslides are becoming more common due to increased anthropogenic disturbance, threatening sustainable development in mountainous environments. Population pressure and associated land cover...

On January 7, 2025, an Ms6.8 earthquake struck Dingri County, Xigazê City, in the Xizang Autonomous Region. The epicenter, located near the Shenzha-Dingjie fault zone at the boundary between the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau and the Indian Plate, marked the largest earthquake in the region in recent years. The Shenzha-Dingjie fault zone, situated at the b...

The systematic morphometric analyses of submarine mud volcanoes are widespread yet still poorly understood geological features. Our study reveals that submarine mud volcanoes show significant variability in size and geometry, independent of water depth. Specifically, the mean height-to-radius (H/R) ratio is ~0.14 ± 0.08 (±1σ). This study focuses pr...

This paper presents a fully remote approach for the assessment of rockfall incidents that is based on leveraging data that become available online with the goal to develop three dimensional (3D) models, document in detail the rockfall trajectory immediately following the incident and conduct rockfall analyses fully remotely. Such an approach can re...

This study examines the effect of simulated rainfall infiltration on the soil organic carbon content and the rheology of mud, focusing on the natural stability of soils in landslide-prone areas. Using soil samples from the Partenio Mountains in Southern Italy, affected by catastrophic debris flows, the infiltration of rainwater was simulated under...

On January 1, 2024, a shallow reverse faulting event occurred in the Earth’s crust on the west coast of Suzu City, on the Noto Peninsula of Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, and triggered a strong earthquake (M w 7.5). The shaking and accompanying tsunami hit the Noto Peninsula, causing significant fatalities and economic losses. Four months after the ea...

The fatal rock avalanche type landslide occurred in the northern part of the village Nergeeti (Imereti region) on February 7, 2024, which destroyed private houses, damaged a road, water supply, gas pipelines and different infrastructure objects, moreover, 9 persons lost their lives. The study area is located in the Khanistskali river valley and tec...

Current practice to model the occurrence of submarine landslides is based on methods that assess the potential of site-specific failures, all with the objective of providing elements to identify and quantify regional features associated to geohazards, before a project development takes place. Also, survey data to estimate parameters required to mod...

Geohazards are a global phenomenon, affecting both modern infrastructure and remnants from history. The extreme climate change occurring in Arctic Svalbard makes it one of the most environmentally sensitive areas for cultural heritage (CH) in the Northern Hemisphere. The physical landscapes, comprising mountain slopes, glacial, fluvial, and coastal...

Fault interpretation is a critical task in seismic data interpretation, usually approached through classification techniques that label seismic cubes as faulted or unfaulted regions. This study proposes a novel 3D convolutional neural network (CNN) framework that reframes fault detection as a regression task to estimate fault throw magnitudes. Usin...

The submarine canyons system is the most widely distributed geomorphic unit on the global continental margin. It is an important concept in the field of deep-water sedimentation and geohazards. Based on high-resolution multibeam bathymetry and two-dimensional seismic data, the dendritic canyon system north of Dongdao island is studied at the easter...

This study introduces a unified framework for evaluating the physical impacts of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on buildings, leveraging upon the existing capabilities of the OpenQuake engine for earthquake risk assessment and various existing packages for computing volcanic hazard footprints. We illustrate the capabilities of the new OpenQuake...

The Moroccan High Atlas is a key region for understanding the complexities of tectonic interactions within intracontinental settings. However, the spatial distribution of stress fields and strain partitioning between the basement and cover during the basin inversion remain poorly understood, posing challenges for unraveling the geodynamic evolution...

The increased frequency of rainfall‐triggered geohazards has led to more disruptions of transportation networks in recent years. This study proposes an integrated framework for resilience assessment of transportation networks, where the highway disruption scenarios are simulated using a traffic model and a developed geohazard threat model based on...

China’s first L-band fully polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) constellation, LuTan-1 (LT-1), was designed for terrain mapping and geohazard monitoring. This study evaluates LT-1’s capability in identifying landslides in the southern hilly regions of China, focusing on Longshan County, Hunan Province. Using both ascending and descending orb...

Volcanic Islands are major geological features that help understanding the history of our planet. Volcanism is one of the main geological processes that can produce significant impacts on humans, both by providing rich soils and landscapes, but also posing a variety of geohazards. Thus, understanding recent volcanism can help human development i...

The Zagros Fold-Thrust Belt (ZFTB) presents a unique intersection of geohazards and gas reservoir dynamics , shaped by the ongoing tectonic activity resulting from the collision of the Arabian and Eurasian plates. This study aims to assess the risk of earthquake-induced landslides and their impact on gas reservoir pressure dynamics-with a particula...

Rockfall is considered the main geohazard in mountainous areas with steep morphology. The main objective of this study is to assess the rockfall hazard in the cultural heritage site of the Monastery of Agia Paraskevi, Monodendri, in northern Greece, where a recent rockfall event occurred, destroying a small house and the protective fence constructe...

Systematic morphometric studies of submarine potential geohazard elements such as mud volcanism are still limited in the scientific literature. To fill this gap and contribute to the global geohazard databases, we present a comprehensive inventory of submarine mud volcanoes (MVs) considering their spatial location and characteristics. The “Global i...

Permafrost warming significantly affects the stability of rockwalls in high altitude regions. Subsurface monitoring of permafrost is essential to assess the resulting potential geohazards. This study investigates permafrost dynamics at Aiguille du Midi (3842 m a.s.l., French Alps) using an Automated-Electrical Resistivity Tomography (A-ERT) approac...

Lutan-1 is the first L-band SAR satellite launched by China with the core mission of geohazard monitoring, but few studies have been conducted to apply it in the field of earthquakes. In this paper, the capability of Lutan-1 data in coseismic deformation analysis and seismogenic fault parameter inversion was discussed by taking the 2023 Mw6.0 Jishi...

Landslides pose a significant geohazard in Ethiopia’s northwestern highlands due to steep terrain, heavy rainfall, and unsustainable land use. This study integrates Frequency Ratio (FR) and Weight of Evidence (WoE) models with natural (e.g. slope, lithology, rainfall) and anthropogenic factors (e.g. deforestation, road proximity) to develop high-re...

This study addresses the challenges of anchoring floating offshore wind turbines in sandy soil locations, focusing on key regions like Taiwan and South Korea. Facing geohazard issues such as liquefaction and scouring, a novel Deeply Embedded Ring Anchor (DERA) is introduced. DERA’s compact size, deep embedment capability, and compatibility with var...

High-resolution imaging of the near-surface structures of critical objects is necessary in various applications including geohazard studies, the structural health of artificial structures, and generally in environmental seismology. This study explores the use of fiber optic sensor technology in active seismic surveys to monitor the embankment struc...

The Himalayan Mountain ranges are very sensitive to geohazards like landslides, earthquakes, cloudbursts, and flash floods because they are known for their neotectonics activity. The geomechanical behaviour of road cut slopes along National Highway 7 (NH-7), from Rudraprayag to Joshimath in the Garhwal Himalayas, is significantly influenced by lith...

This research introduces the Pasqale rock/debris avalanche, an occurrence of a prehistoric landslide in the upstream region of Darband Valley in northern Tehran metropolitan that is exemplified as an instance of a high-risk geohazard encountered in the proximity of a metropolitan area. Its initiation as a slide from a steep scarp, with an elevation...

The increase in offshore exploration for oil and natural gas has raised concerns about the safety of pipelines in the face of submarine slides, debris flow, and high-density turbidity currents. These submarine gravity flows constitute significant marine geohazards as they undermine the structural integrity of offshore pipelines, underscoring the im...

Detecting and locating emitted fluids in the water column is necessary for studying margins, identifying natural resources, and preventing geohazards. Fluids can be detected in the water column using multibeam echosounder data. However, manually analyzing the huge volume of this data for geoscientists is a very time-consuming task. Our study invest...

Urban development and climate change are two main impacting factors in the thermal environment of cities. This study aims to analyze future changes in Mean Radiant Temperature (MRT), one of the main contributors to human thermal comfort and the concept of Urban Heat Island (UHI), considering climate change and urban development scenarios in the stu...

The distribution and characteristics of karst sinkholes is critical for the understanding and evaluation of geohazards. A two-step process, involving computer vision and machine learning methods, has been developed to map and classify depressions as sinkholes. Every depression has been mapped from a LIDAR derived DTM first and later a machine learn...

The Causeway Coast is located on the northern coast of Northern Ireland. A rugged coastline, it is a area of high tourism due to its natural beauty and an area of significance in Irish mythology. Two sites on the Causeway Coast were chosen to develop a geohazard citizen pilot observatory, the world-renowned Giants Causeway and Carrick-a-rede. Both...

Communication was a vital component for AGEO project, as it enabled the Consortium to engage with the stakeholders and raise awareness about geohazards and how to react to them. Bidirectional communication was established with the public, receiving feedback on how to improve the citizens’ preparedness towards geohazards.

Risk management is the use of disaster risk reduction policies and strategies to prevent the occurrence of future disasters, reduce current disaster risk, and manage residual risk, thereby enhancing resilience and reducing catastrophic losses, despite the fact that citizens may take an active role in geohazard risk management. Citizens’ Observatori...

The European Union’s Atlantic region is susceptible to a wide range of geohazards. Measuring ground surface motion is critical for detecting and monitoring many of these geohazards. We present observations of potential ground motion as defined by Interferometry of Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) over areas encompassing three Citizen Observatory (C...

The chapter examines how citizen science projects, particularly in geohazard monitoring, can be strengthened through systematic stakeholder engagement. Using the AGEO project as a case study, with five established Citizen Observatories across Europe, it details how stakeholders were identified, classified, and engaged across political, economic, kn...

After floods, landslides are the most damaging geohazard in Spain regarding economic losses. In the Canary Islands, rockfalls and landslides are mainly triggered by meteorological phenomena, such as severe precipitations and wind, as well as dilation resulting from solar radiation. Understanding information such as location, frequency, event type,...

Citizens’ observatories are web-based platforms designed to increase citizens’ participation and knowledge of their surrounding environment by collecting different formats of data and information. This chapter presents the design and development of a standard set of customizable software artefacts for a citizen observatory for geohazards that suppo...

With the 1:10,000 geohazard hazard evaluation in Northwest China, the delineation of geohazard hazard zoning has begun to shift to the township scale. This study aims to reveal the impacts of three important uncertainty issues in landslide susceptibility prediction (LSP) at the township scale: mapping units, spatial resolutions, and selection of ma...

Within the realm of natural hazards, geohazards are recognised as being particularly complex and often having the potential of triggering disasters. This complexity has led to increased political commitment and interest in engaging multi-stakeholder and citizens in disaster risk management. The AGEO project explored new forms to foster collaboratio...

With the AGEO Project focused on the assessment and management of geohazards, particular attention was paid to Copernicus EMS, as it supports all phases of the emergency management cycle: preparedness, prevention, disaster risk reduction, emergency response and recovery. The uptake of the Copernicus EMS in the EU Atlantic Region from 2012–2022 is r...

The increasing frequency of geotechnical disasters and climate-related land degradation underscores the need of resilient soil erosion mitigation. This study investigates the effectiveness of Cr³⁺-crosslinked xanthan gum (CrXG), a cation-crosslinked gelation biopolymer with time-dependent gelation and water-resistant properties, in mitigating hydra...

Land subsidence, a slow-onset geohazard, poses a severe threat to cities worldwide. However, the lack of quantification in terms of intensity, probability, and hazard zoning complicates the assessment and understanding of the land subsidence risk. In this study, we employ a weighted Bayesian model to explicitly present the spatial distribution of l...

Ensuring safety in geotechnical engineering has consistently posed challenges due to the inherent variability of soil. In the case of slope stability problems, performing on-site tests is both costly and time-intensive due to the need for sophisticated equipment (to acquire and move) and logistics. Consequently, the analysis of simulation models ba...

Ecological security provides the basis of maintaining both a sustainable regional ecosystem and economic development. However, few studies have focused on how the features such as topography and geomorphology, lithologic stratigraphic assemblages, and geohazard distribution affect the construction of ecological security patterns and the layout of o...

Glaciers are indicators of ongoing anthropogenic climate change ¹ . Their melting leads to increased local geohazards ² , and impacts marine ³ and terrestrial 4,5 ecosystems, regional freshwater resources ⁶ , and both global water and energy cycles 7,8 . Together with the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, glaciers are essential drivers of present...

One of the most dangerous geological disaster risks in mountainous areas is granular flow. Slit dams, which might partially block the granular flow and let downstream flow at a slower speed, have been crucial in reducing the geohazards associated with granular flow. In this work, the discrete element method (DEM) was used to explore the effect of t...

Monitoring and analyzing reservoir landslides are essential for predicting and mitigating geohazards, which are crucial for maintaining sustainability and supporting socio-economic development in reservoir areas. High spatiotemporal resolution is vital for effective reservoir landslide monitoring and analysis. For this purpose, we improved the reso...

XiangGuoSi reservoir is a depleted gas reservoir that has recently (in 2014) been converted to an underground gas storage facility. It stores gas in the reservoir during the summer season and produces gas in the winter season. In this work, we present a case report on using InSAR to monitor the mountainous area beneath where the XiangGuoSi gas rese...

Landslides are a common global geohazard that lead to substantial loss of life and socio-economic damage annually. Landslides are becoming more common due to climate change and anthropogenic disturbance, threatening sustainable development in vulnerable areas. Previous studies on fatal landslides have focussed on inventory development; spatial and...

Hydrologically‐induced landslides are ubiquitous natural hazards in the Himalayas, posing severe threat to human life and infrastructure. Yet, landslide assessment in the Himalayas is extremely challenging partly due to complex and drastically changing climate conditions. Here we establish a mechanistic hydromechanical landslide modeling framework...

Gas hydrate-bearing sediments (GHBSs), which naturally occur in permafrost and seafloor environments, play a vital role in the safe and efficient development of hydrates and the prevention of seafloor geohazards. Understanding the interfacial mechanics between natural gas hydrates and sedimentary minerals is paramount for evaluating the mechanical...

Due to its particular geotectonic setup and resultant terrain, the northern Pakistan has witnessed landslides as one of the major geohazards posing a permanent threat to life, infrastructure and socioeconomic setup. The link between geological fault lines and landslides is well-established by researchers. The current study encompassing the landslid...

Floods are considered to be among the most dangerous and destructive geohazards, leading to human victims and severe economic outcomes. Yearly, many regions around the world suffer from devasting floods. The estimation of flood aftermaths is one of the high priorities for the global community. One such flood took place in northern Libya in Septembe...