Research

Projects

Landslide multi-hazard risk assessment, preparedness and early warning in South Asia: Integrating meteorology, landscape and society (LANDSLIP)

LANDSLIP has been funded under the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)/Department for International Development (DFID) Science for Humanitarian Emergencies & Resilience (SHEAR) programme. SHEAR aims to support improved disaster resilience and humanitarian response by advancing monitoring, assessment and prediction of natural hazards and risks across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and, through working with users, bringing this into use to reduce the impacts of disasters.

The consortium, driven by advances in interdisciplinary science, aims to enhance landslide risk assessment and early warning within a multi-hazard framework. Collaborating with national and district authorities, the program seeks to bolster preparedness for hydrologically controlled landslides and related hazards across varying spatial and temporal scales. Operating in India, the initiative involves partnerships with public and private sectors, academics, and non-profit agencies, striving to elevate resilience and minimize loss.

LANDSLIP, a component of this overarching effort, builds on existing scientific research in India, the UK, and Italy. It employs interdisciplinary methodologies to tackle the inherent challenges of forecasting and managing landslides at different scales. The research delves into understanding weather regimes, rainfall characteristics, and geological factors influencing landslide susceptibility. LANDSLIP innovatively addresses the integration of slope-specific Early Warning Systems into broader catchment to national landslide Early Warning Systems, incorporating medium-range forecasts to enhance short-term forecasting. Moreover, it enhances Early Warning System effectiveness by integrating social-dynamic information from human and physical sensors, utilizing sources like social media and remote sensing. The initiative ultimately aims to develop web-based tools and services in collaboration with local stakeholders, improving resilience in specific pilot-study areas and facilitating knowledge transfer to other vulnerable regions, such as Afghanistan.

Joint Research Publications

1. 2019: Context-Based Knowledge Discovery and Querying for Social Media Data, Jedsada Phengsuwan, Nipun Balan Thekkummal, Teja Shah, Philip James, Dhavalkumar Thakker, Rui Sun, Divya Pullarkatt, T. Hemalatha, Maneesha Vinodini Ramesh, Rajiv Ranjan
2. 2021: Use of Social Media Data in Disaster Management: A Survey, Jedsada Phengsuwan, Nipun Balan Thekkummal, Teja Shah, Philip James, Dhavalkumar Thakker, Rui Sun, Divya Pullarkatt, T. Hemalatha, Maneesha Vinodini Ramesh, Rajiv Ranjan
3. 2021: A Landslide Tracker Methodology to Support Local Reporting of Landslides in India, Christian Arnhardt, Ramesh Guntha, Gargi Singh, Vish K.R Viswanathan, Praful Rao, Gokul Halan, Maneesha Vinodini Ramesh, and Bruce Malamud
4. 2021: Spatial Temporal Tracking of Landslide Events: A Crowdsourced Mobile App, Maneesha Vinodini Ramesh, Ramesh Guntha, Christian Arnhardt, Gargi Singh, Viswanathan Kr, Praful Rao, Gokul Halan, and Bruce Malamud.