Nature and Society are deeply interwoven. The character of economic development so far has ignored the fact that natural processes are threats when disturbed, and opportunities when recognized for their true worth.
Landslides and rockfalls on slopes, debris flows within torrential streams and flooding on river valleys, driven by climatic and anthropogenic factors as well as land mismanagement, all cost the economy dear, especially in mountain areas. Even today, development is still taking place in many hazardous zones, and even more development is locating in future hazard zones where planning and predictive assessment are at odds.
Growing attention has to be paid to the impact of climatic and non-climatic changes that will result in changing hazard and risk patterns over Europe. The development of viable livelihoods on the long-term endorses also the task of governing the risk assessment process at all levels of spatial planning, and for several spatial and temporal scales.

The main objective of the conference is first to contribute to a better knowledge of the interaction of natural, engineering, economical and human sciences on mountain risks management, and second to highlight the fact that planning information is vital in terms of assisting the planning and development processes as well as effectively reducing the risks.
The focus is both (1) on technical sessions presenting the state-of-the-art research in the understanding of mountain processes and in the development of innovative methodologies for quantitative hazard and risk forecasts, and (2) on the practical integration of multidiscplinary knowledge within multi-scale methodologies for handling risks and prevention planning.

The event is sponsored by the European Geosciences Union (EGU) as a Topical Conference of the Natural Hazards Division, the Council of Europe through the EUR-OPA Major Hazards Agreeement (CERG), and the European Commission through the Marie Curie Actions of the 6th Framework Programme  (Project Mountain Risks).
The European Geosciences Union offers 4 grants of 500€ for young scientists of Eastern and Southern Mediterranean countries to participate to the Conference.

CT-01: Methods for the inventory and susceptibility assessment of hazardous events in mountain areas, and generation of magnitude-frequency relationships.
Keynote lecture: J.-L. Zezere

CT-02: Monitoring techniques and methods for landslide displacement and runout analyses.
Keynote lecture: D. Petley

CT-03: New technologies for monitoring mountain risks, and for the operative implementation of early warning systems.
Keynote lecture: B. de Bernardinis.

CT-04: Methods for the characterization of elements at risk, their vulnerability and the estimation of risk scenarios.
Keynote lecture: J. Birkmann

CT-05: Methods and criteria for risk mitigation and cost-benefit analyses.
Keynote lecture: C. Pfurtscheller

CT-06: Societal perception of mountain risks.
Keynote lecture: C. Felgentreff

CT-07: Communication on risk management: geo-information and visualization tools, education and training packages.
Keynote lecture: C. van Westen

CT-08: Towards European-wide risk assessment techniques and harmonised guidelines for mountain risks management.
Keynote lecture: J. Hervàs.

CT-09: The SafeLand Project: Living with landslide risk in Europe.
Keynote lecture: F. Nadim

Back to top