Landslides and Socio-economic Impact: Basic Data and Loss Modeling
Conveners : Lynn Highland, Dalia Kirschbaum and Dave Petley
Session description :
Landslides can create permanently unstable sites that cannot be repaired or developed, and as a result, can cause severe economic and social consequences for families and communities. Human activities disturb large volumes of earth materials during the construction of buildings, roads and other infrastructure, and thus have been a major factor in increases in damage due to slope failures. Population migration pressure, which includes movement into hazardous areas, may also increase the vulnerability to social and economic consequences.
This session presents aspects of these impacts and will include:
* Case histories of landslide-related socioeconomic impacts, both direct and indirect, on populations.
* The effects of landslide mitigation measures, such as land use regulation, enforcement, construction incentives, and the evacuation and relocation of affected populations.
* A forum for the presentation of strategies for forecasting and measuring economic losses to the built and natural environments such as, inventory acquisition, disaster modelling, cost/benefit analyses and disaster scenarios.
* The multi-hazard, cumulative socio-economic affects of associated hazards that may accompany landslides such as flood, earthquakes, glacial retreat, volcano edifice collapses and eruptions, and the potential multiplier effect of climate change on such.
* Examples of the development of increased resilience to landslides through social and economic measures.
* Proposals for and examples of the implementation of education, monitoring, mapping, land use and/or hazard alerts on landslide hazard reduction, and/or attitudes and perception by populations. Can they be measured for their success in reducing landslide losses, and if not, have other strategies been tried?
