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OCR for page 103
9
Conclusions and Recommendations
Primarily because individual landslides usually affect limited local
areas and individual landowners, damage resulting from landslide
hazards has not generally been recognized as a problem of national
importance and has not been addressed on a national basis. The absence
of a coordinated, national approach to mitigating the detrimental effects
of landslides has resulted in a reduced ability of state and local govern-
ment agencies to apply the important lessons learned, often at consider-
able expense, in other parts of the country. As a result of a congressional
directive, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) addressed the need for a
national approach by preparing the National Landslide Hazards Mitiga-
tion Strategy (Spiker and Gori, 2000~. This proposal describes in broad
overview the nine major components, ranging from basic research activi-
ties to improved public policy measures and enhanced mitigation, con-
sidered essential to address hazards arising from landslides at the national
level. The committee agrees that a national approach to the mitigation
of landslide hazards is needed and considers that the nine components
briefly described in the USGS proposal are the essential elements of a
national landslide hazard mitigation strategy.
Responsibility for the problems posed by landslides, and for the
solutions to those problems, is widely shared among different levels of
government and among different stakeholders at each level. This shared
responsibility emphasizes the role of the partnerships that will be required
to develop and implement a national landslide hazards mitigation strat-
egy. A key starting point for considering landslide partnerships is the
recognition that for a national policy to be effective, it must shape not
103
OCR for page 104
104
PARTNERSHIPS FOR REDUCING LANDSLIDE RISK
only federal actions but also those of state and local governments and
ultimately those of private landowners. The committee agrees that a
national landslide hazards mitigation strategy should be based on part-
nerships involving federal, state, local, and nongovernmental entities.
The committee has defined five focal points for partnerships that will
inevitably entail relationships within and among multiple levels of govern-
ment and with nongovernmental entities:
1. partnerships between the federal agencies involved in landslide
mitigation to provide leadership and national coordination;
2. partnerships between federal agencies and their state counterparts
to promote hazard mapping and risk analysis at the state level;
3. partnerships between state agencies and local governments, non-
governmental groups, and private citizens to ensure that education and
assistance is provided to the "front line" of mitigation activities;
4. research partnerships between federal agencies and academic insti-
tutions, in collaboration with state, local, and nongovernmental partners,
to conduct research on landslide process mechanics, monitoring tech-
niques, loss and risk assessment methods, and mapping techniques, and
5. international partnerships for global exchange of knowledge and
techniques.
The description of the components of a national landslide hazards
mitigation strategy in the USGS proposal is brief. The committee con-
cludes that a more complete discussion of the comparative importance of
each element of the proposed national strategy is required and a sense of
priorities must be presented. The recommendations presented in the
following paragraphs are designed to convey the committee's priorities
for a national program:
The committee recommends that a national strategy for landslide
loss reduction promote the use of risk analysis techniques to guide loss
reduction efforts at the state and local levels. Because the state of the art
of landslide risk analysis is evolving, further development of risk analysis
methods, and documentation and dissemination of their use, are impor-
tant components of the research and application program for a national
landslide strategy. Use of risk analysis for guiding appropriate choice of
landslide loss reduction tools should be an important element of the
technical assistance and outreach programs provided to state, local, and
nongovernmental entities. Development of guidelines and standards
concerning best practices and promotion of those practices at state and
local levels of government are important aspects of the proposed federal
strategy.
OCR for page 105
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
105
The National Landslide Hazards Mitigation Program must play a
vital role in evaluating methods, setting standards, and advancing pro-
cedures and guidelines for landslide hazard maps and assessments.
National landslide information gathering and mapping should be under-
taken within the proposed partnerships. The program must establish
appropriate standards and procedures for the collection, long-term manage-
ment, and maintenance of this information. Metadata must be associated
with all data collected under the auspices of the program, in accordance
with National Spatial Data Infrastructure protocols. Hazard donation
mapping must be developed for multiple mapping scales by utilizing best
available technologies. Accurate terrain information is essential, and the
landslide hazard mapping program must be based on the highest-resolution
topographic data.
In order to provide tools for landslide hazard mitigation, it will be
necessary to conduct basic research on monitoring techniques and on
aspects of landslide process mechanics. An integrated research program
is recommended in which intensive field studies are used to (1) improve
site and laboratory characterization techniques; (2) develop new field
monitoring methods; (3) obtain greater understanding of failure and
movement mechanisms; and (4) develop and test models to predict fail-
ure timing, location, and ultimate mass displacement. Studies of debris
flows, bedrock slides, and submarine landslides deserve greatest atten-
tion. Innovative remote-sensing technologies are now offering researchers
the possibility of rapid and detailed detection and monitoring of land-
slides. Additional support to exploit these new technologies and develop
practical tools for a broad user community is needed.
Improved education and awareness of landslide hazards and miti-
gation options, for decision makers, professionals, and the general
public, must be primary components of a national landslide hazard
mitigation program. Collecting and disseminating information about
landslide hazards to federal, state, and local government agencies and
nongovernmental organizations, planners, policy makers, and private
citizens in a form useful for planning and decision making is critically
important to an effective mitigation program. Such education and aware-
ness efforts will be most effective if implemented at the outset of the
program. If the national landslide hazard mitigation program is to mate-
rialize, broad-based acceptance, participation, and support are essential
to its success.
The committee agrees that substantially increased funding will be
necessary to implement a national landslide hazards mitigation pro-
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106
PARTNERSHIPS FOR REDUCING LANDSLIDE RISK
gram. The committee considers that the figure of $20 million, presented in
the USGS proposal as the amount required to support an enlarged Land-
slides Hazards Program within USGS, would provide an adequate basis
for the initial stages of a national strategy with a 10-year target for achiev-
ing substantial loss reduction goals. However, the committee considers
that the distribution of funding should progress from an initial emphasis
on research, development of guidelines, and startup to the later wide-
spread implementation of landslide risk reduction measures through
various partnership programs. The committee considers that additional
increases to annual funding of $35 million for years 4-6 and $50 million
for years 7-10 and beyond will be required to support these later parts of
the program. The committee recognizes the reality that national budget-
ary considerations will determine the total annual funding provided to
implement this strategy and emphasizes that the distribution of total avail-
able funding among the program's different components is of paramount
importance for an appropriately balanced national program.
The committee commends the USGS for undertaking the important
initial steps toward a comprehensive national landslide hazards miti-
gation strategy. The committee recommends that the USGS in close
partnership with other relevant agencies produce the implementation
and management plans that will provide the practical basis for an effec-
tive national strategy that can be applied at the local level.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
landslide hazards
