LandAware: a new international network on Landslide Early Warning Systems

Background Early Warning Systems (EWS) are important non-structural mitigation measures designed and used to avoid and/or minimize the impact posed by hazards on humans. They are often a costeffective mitigation measure to adopt, and sometimes they are the only suitable option to manage the risk posed by natural hazards (Glade and Nadim 2014). UNISDR (2009) defines EWSs as a “set of capacities needed to generate and disseminate timely and meaningful warning information to enable individuals, communities and organizations threatened by a hazard to act appropriately and in sufficient time to reduce the possibility of harm or loss.” Landslide Early Warning Systems (LEWS) are specifically designed to monitor, forecast, and analyze conditions that could trigger one or more landslides, at a scale (local, regional, national, global) defined by systemmanagers. The aim is, as for any EWS, saving human lives by issuing timely warnings and/or initiating other appropriate landslide risk mitigation actions. The design, implementation, management, and validation of LEWS are topics that are drawing increasing attention in the scientific and technical literature (e.g., Intrieri et al. 2013; Stähli et al. 2015; Fathani et al. 2016; Sättele et al. 2016; Calvello 2017; Piciullo et al. 2018; Pecoraro et al. 2019; Guzzetti et al. 2020), highlighting several theoretical and practical complexities. Many recent international initiatives have been highlighting the importance of EWSs for disaster risk reduction purposes. The European Climate Adaptation Platform (http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/) states “Early warning systems can enhance the preparedness of decision-makers and private individuals for climate-related natural hazards and their readiness to harness favourable weather conditions.” Goal no. 13 “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts” of UN Agenda 2030 for sustainable development (http:// sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld) includes “Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning.” One of the seven global targets of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (UNISDR 2015) is “substantially increase the availability of and access to multihazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to the people by 2030.” Concerning landslides, the important role played by LEWSs has been highlighted by the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnership 2015–2025 (https://wlf5.iplhq.org/isdr-icl-sendai-partnerships-2015-2025/) and, more recently, by the Kyoto 2020 Commitment for Global Promotion of Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk KLC2020 (Sassa 2019; Sassa 2020), in particular within the priority action no. 1 “People centered early warning,” and the priority action no. 3 “Technologies for monitoring, testing & early warning.” In response to these global initiatives, natural hazard experts working with EWSs around the world have recently founded programs and networks to promote international collaboration among members engaged in both surveillance of natural hazards and issuance of warnings to key stakeholders (authorities and public). Among them we can mention multi-hazard initiatives, such as the multi-stakeholder International Network for MultiHazard Early Warning Systems promoted by the World Meteorological Organization (https://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/drr/documents/IN-MHEWS/IN-MHEWS.html), as well as initiatives focusing on single natural hazards, such as the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Tsunami Programme (http:// www.ioc-tsunami.org/), the World Organization of Volcanic Observatories (http://www.wovo.org/), the Global Seismographic Network of the IRIS consortium in the USA (https://www.iris.edu/hq/ programs/gsn), and the European Avalanche Warning Services (https://www.avalanches.org/). Filling a gap in this global scenario, and in response to the abovementioned requests from the landslide risk scientific community, in July 2020 a multi-disciplinary international network of experts in LEWS was founded. The network is named “LandAware – the international network on Landslide Early Warning Systems” (https://www.landaware.org). The establishment of this network shall also be seen as a followup initiative of two invitation-only workshops on territorial/ geographical LEWSs, which were held in Oslo, Norway, in 2016 (Devoli 2017) and in Perugia, Italy, in 2020 (Calvello et al. 2020). The main purpose of both workshops was to sustain an active exchange of knowledge, experiences, challenges, and best practices among researchers and operators of municipal, regional, and national LEWS in different countries across the globe. Each workshop was attended by around 40 participants frommore than 10 countries (Fig. 1). International experts in the fields of operative prediction of rainfall-induced landslides, meteorology, hydrology, geomorphology, engineering, and risk communication gathered to share experiences and knowledge on operational systems and to discuss the need for cross-border future forums. A number of invited talks and diverse round tables allowed discussion on different issues related to LEWSs, ranging from input data to forecasting models, from operative warning models to management strategies (including stakeholder involvement and communication to citizens, residents, and authorities). At the end of the 2020 workshop, to consolidate the worldwide community of LEWS experts, the workshop organizers created a steering committee charged with the task of defining a strategy for setting up permanent international group on LEWSs. The establishment of LandAware was the final outcome of the work of this committee, which involved many online meetings as well as a continuous exchange of ideas, proposal, and suggestions during a period of about 5 months, from February to June 2020.