Landslides

Landslides occur nearly every day in mountain environments. Most of the landslides are not observed or registered because they do not cause any damage or harm. However, they can destroy farmland (Figure 1), damage infrastructure (Figure 2)  and result in injury or even death of people. In Norway, there have been more than 33,000 registered landslides, which have caused more than 1100 casualties.

The Norwegian word for landslide "skred" includes all kind of materials including rock, soils of all types, as well as snow and ice (Figure 3). NGU is the national authority for mapping and managing geological data in Norway and hence carries out mapping of geological conditions that might lead to landslides. This work is financed by the Norwegian Water and Energy Directorate (NVE). NGU maps unstable rock slopes that might collapse as rock avalanches, supports rockfall, debris-flow and snow avalanche hazard mapping by landslide-specific Quaternary geological mapping, and also maps areas where marine sediments that can form quick clay landslides. The mapping of submarine landslide deposits and landslide-prone sediments in lakes, fjords and the sea is part of the mapping activities. The landslide team at NGU uses various techniques to support geological field mapping and these techniques are being further developed at NGU. The landslide team (Figure 4) has a broad expertise, cooperates with multiple national and international institutions and carries out method development and research that strongly contributes to NGU's scientific profile.

Links: 

• NVE
• The university centre in Svalbard
• University of Oslos geoscience page
• http://uit.no/om/enhet/forsiden?p_dimension_id=88137
• http://www3.unil.ch/wpmu/risk/
• http://www.disat.unimib.it/index.php?lang=it
• https://www1.ethz.ch/engineeringgeology
• http://www.dal.ca/faculty/science/earth-sciences.html
• http://www.geologia.uchile.cl/