Keywords

1 International Programme on Landslides—IPL

The International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) was established in January 2002 as a non-profit scientific organization. The ICL was approved to be a NGO having operational relations with UNESCO in April 2007. The International Programme on Landslides (IPL) was launched at the first meeting of the Board of Representatives of ICL (BOR/ICL) at United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Headquarters, Paris, in November 2002.

The International Programme on Landslides (IPL) as a global cooperation programme was further developed during a special thematic session of the United Nations World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR) held in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan in January 2005, as a new international disaster science and capacity building initiative. The thematic session was organized by UNESCO, WMO, UNU, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of the Government of Japan, and ICL.

The current second stage of IPL was defined and established by the 2006 Tokyo Action Plan “Strengthening Research and Learning on Landslides and Related Earth System Disasters for Global Risk Preparedness” (Sassa 2006). In 2006, the International Consortium on Landslides exchanged Memorandum of Understandings to promote IPL with each of ICL supporting organizations: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), United Nations University (UNU), International Council for Science (ICSU), and the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO).

IPL as an international programme is managed by IPL Global Promotion Committee consisting of ICL and ICL supporting organizations (UNESCO, UNISDR and others). For more information on the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL), see a review paper in this volume, prepared by Sassa (2022c) or visit the new ICL web pages (ICL 2022).

In recent years, several review papers about the history, objectives and activities of IPL were published (e.g. Sassa 2004c; 2009a; Casagli et al. 2009; Sassa 2013; Mikoš and Mihalić Arbanas 2014; Han et al. 2017, 2020). This is an updated review paper on IPL history, objectives and its main activities: IPL projects, World Landslide Forums, World Centres of Excellence in Landslide Risk Reduction, and other IPL activities.

2 Global Promotion Committee (GPC)

2.1 Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides (GPC/IPL)

Until the end of 2021, the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) was managed by the Global Promotion Committee (GPC), with ICL and ICL supporting organization selecting GPC/IPL Chair and several co-chairs. The first GPC Chair (2008–2013) was Salvano Briceño, former Director of UNISDR, and the second Chair (2014–2021) was Qunli Han, Director of Ecological and Earth Sciences, UNESCO.

The IPL World Centre (IWC) was established in 2006 by the Tokyo Action Plan to serve as the Secretariat of IPL and GPC/IPL. Members of the GPC/IPL were ICL Full Members and ICL Supporting Organizations (ICL 2018b).

2.2 Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides and Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020 (GPC/IPL-KLC)

ICL launched in 2020 a new voluntary commitment to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, and to United Nations Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals, namely the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020 (Sassa 2021a), a successor of the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships for global promotion of understanding and reducing of landslide disaster risk 2015–2025 (Sassa 2015, 2016) (Fig. 1). For an overview of Sendai Voluntary Commitments, see the paper by Matsuoka and Gonzales Rocha (2020).

Fig. 1
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Logos of the ICL and Kyoto landslide commitment 2020

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Through this development, GPC/IPL was transformed into the Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides and Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020 (GPC/IPL-KLC). Its Chair is selected from ICL and its Co-chairs from ICL supporting organizations. Since January 2022, the Chair of the GPC is Matjaž Mikoš, UNESCO Chair on Water-related Disaster Risk Reduction, University of Ljubljana, and Co-Chairs are Qunli Han, Executive Director of International Programme Office of Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR), Soichiro Yasukawa, Programme Specialist on Disaster Risk Reduction, UNESCO, Paris, Hiroshi Kitazato, Treasurer of IUGS, and John LaBrecque, Chair of IUGG GeoRisk Commission—Secretary to GPC is Kyoji Sassa, Director of IPL World Centre. Members of the newly established GPC/IPL-KLC are ICL Full Members, ICL Supporting Organizations, and KLC2020 Official Promoters.

3 IPL Projects

3.1 The Initial Stage of IPL Projects (2002–2008)

The initial stage of IPL projects which was managed by ICL, started in 2002 at the same time of ICL’s foundation. The projects were divided into two categories: coordinating projects (called C-project) planned by several ICL members, and single member projects (called M-project) (Sassa et al. 2005). On overview of these initial IPL projects is given in Appendices Table 2. The first IPL project C-100 was publication of Landslides: Journal of the International Consortium on Landslides. This initial IPL project is still active, and the journal was a success from its launching and is nowadays effectively one of few leading journals in the field of landslide science and research (Mikoš et al. 2021).

3.2 The IPL Projects (Since 2008)

Annually, all ICL members have the right to propose an IPL project using a structured application form (Sassa 2013). All submitted proposals are evaluated from formal point of view for their completeness by the ICL Secretariat in Kyoto, Japan, and then evaluated from their technical merit point of view by the IPL Evaluation Committee. In the last years, all proposals are evaluated on their objectives (35%), implementation capabilities (40%), and expected outputs (25%). All proposing institutions are asked to present their projects at annual ICL meetings, and they have a chance to improve their applications according to suggestions and comments received by the audience, and by written comments from the IPL Evaluation Committee. The project proposals are evaluated and ranked by at least ten landslide experts. Proposals with scores over the threshold of 70% are normally supported and approved by the Global Promotion Committee of IPL. All projects are declared on-going after their approval as long as they submit reports on an annual basis to the IPL Secretariat using structured report forms, and submit research articles on the project results to the journal Landslides, World Landslide Forums, or give presentations at annual IPL conferences. A full overview of all completed and on-going IPL projects is given in the Appendices Table 2.

Altogether 165 IPL projects (including subprojects) have been approved since 2002 in 36 countries, many have been completed or terminated after years of activities, and some are still on-going. On average, close to 10 projects are approved annually, running then for several years—at least for two years to be evaluated and approved. A short statistic with regard to IPL projects reveals the following (see Appendices Table 2 for details):

  • the vast majority of projects are national projects, only a few are bilateral projects among two countries (Canada, China, Italy, Japan, Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Vietnam)—the last such project is IPL-249 by Japan and Sri Lanka, approved in 2019.

  • the highest number of IPL projects were approved in the following 12 countries: Italy (28), Japan (23), China (14), Russian Federation (11), Czech Republic (8), India (7), Indonesia (7), Malaysia (7), Sri Lanka (7), Canada (5), Malaysia (5), Slovenia (5), and the remaining 24 countries have 4 or fewer IPL projects.

3.3 The IPL Award for Success

The IPL Award for Success is selected by the IPL Award Committee and is given to a maximum three best successful projects implemented within IPL at the occasion of each World Landslide Forum following a rigorous evaluation of outputs, activities and impacts of all IPL projects during the previous 3-year cycle of activities. The achievements of awarded IPL projects are directly influenced by the finances and infrastructure of the developed or developing countries. The IPL Awards is not meant for best but rather the most successful IPL projects. The awarded IPL projects in the past are shown in italic fonts in Appendices Table 2. A list of all recipients is also published on the IPL web page: https://iplhq.org/category/iplhq/award-and-honors/ipl-award-for-success/.

4 World Landslide Forum (WLF)

The World Landslide Forums as triannual events were established by the 2006 Tokyo Action Plan as a special way of IPL promotional activities (ISDR-ICL 2008). Initially, WLF was proposed to be created as a global information platform for future joint activities of the world-wide landslide community. WLF should bring together academics, practitioners, politicians and other stakeholders to a global, multidisciplinary and problem-based platform. WLF was also seen as the place to recognize World Centres of Excellence (WCoE) in Landslide Risk Reduction and to support other ICL and IPL related promotional activities to global landslide community. Overview of World Landslide Forums since the first one WLF1 in Tokyo, Japan in 2008 (Fig. 3) with location, country, and forum motto is given in Table 1. All six logos of WLFs are given in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2
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Logos of six world landslide forums (2008–2023)

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Fig. 3
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Joint Photo of WLF1 participants at U-Thant hall of UNU in Tokyo on 18 November 2008 (Fig. 2 in Sassa 2009b)

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Table 1 World landslide forums since 2008
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World Landslide Forums can be evaluated as a case of good practice in the fields of landslide practice, research, science, and risk reduction. Normally, it attracts 500 + participants from all over the world, and the wealth of knowledge exchange among the participants was widely available to all stakeholders as published contributions in the WLF Proceedings. The outreach of these publications can be evaluated as solid if measured with bibliometric indices (Mikoš 2018). The last WLF5 in Kyoto, Japan published its reviewed contributions in the ICL Contribution to Landslide Disaster Risk Reduction book series in six volumes under the title “Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk”. This book series was now replaced by the book series “Progress in Landslide Research and Technology (P-LRT) to be published twice a year by Springer Nature (Sassa 2021b).

5 World Centre of Excellence (WCoE) in Landslide Risk Reduction

The World Centres of Excellence on Landslide Risk Reduction were established by the 2006 Tokyo Action Plan.

WCoE candidates are governmental and non-governmental entities such as universities, agencies, and other institutions, and their subsidiary entities (faculties, departments, centres, divisions or others) that are (i) contributing to risk reduction for landslides and related earth system disasters and (ii) are willing to support IPL intellectually, practically and financially by either joining ICL or contributing to GPC/IPL and promote landslide research and risk reduction on a regional and /or global scale in a mutually beneficial manner (Sassa 2013).

5.1 WCoE Guidelines and Evaluation Procedure

All WCoE candidates must submit their application form in a prescribed format to IPL Secretariat. Their applications are first evaluated by the IPL Evaluation Committee (10 + landslide experts from around the world) on the basis of their past achievements, current activities (e.g. scientific, technical and educational capacities, training courses, publications, dissemination of knowledge and information), and planned activities as WCoE to support IPL. Evaluation results are submitted to the Independent Panel of Experts nominated by the GPC/IPL. Their recommendations are finally approved by the GPC/IPL and identified at WLFs for the period of three years (Fig. 4). WCoEs must submit annual reports each year while active and may apply for a prolongation at the next WLF under the same rules as new candidates (Sassa 2013).

Fig. 4
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Twenty organizations were awarded the title of WCoE in landslide risk reduction at WLF4 in Ljubljana, 2017 (Fig. 1 from Mikoš et al. 2017)

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Since the first WLF1 in 2008 in Tokyo, triennially, out of all evaluated proposals, altogether 81 WCoEs from 23 countries and the European Commission (Joint Research Center in ISPRA Italy for 2011–2014) were recognized by the GPC/IPL.

5.2 WCoEs From 2008 till 2023

Triennially, out of all evaluated proposals, altogether 81 WCoEs from 23 countries and the European Commission (Joint Research Center in ISPRA Italy for 2011–2014) were announced at WLFs: twelve WCoEs at WLF1 in 2008, fifteen WCoEs at WLF2 in 2011 and WLF3 in 2014, twenty WCoEs at WLF4 in 2017, and nineteen WCoEs at WLF5 in 2021 (postponed by a year due to COVID-19 pandemic). An overview of all WCoEs is given in Appendices Table 3. The next selection of WCoEs will be completed for WLF6 in Florence, Italy in 2023.

Nearly all WCoEs were from (an) institution(s) of only one country, and the exceptions are WCoEs in Russian Federation & Kyrgyz Republic (2008–2011, 2011–2014, 2014–2017) and Japan & Sri Lanka (2020–2023). In each 3-year period, not more than two WCoEs were recognized in one country, such countries with two WCoEs in one term are: China (2014–2017, 2017–2020), India (2020–2023), Italy (2008–2011, 2020–2023), Japan (2011–2014, 2014–2017), Slovenia (2017–2020), and Sri Lanka (2017–2020).

The highest number of WCoEs for a 3-year period were recognized in the following countries: Italy (8), China (7), Slovenia (6), Czech Republic (5), Japan (5), India (4), Indonesia (4), Malaysia (4), Sri Lanka (4), and Thailand (4), Only two institutions were recognized as WCoE in all five periods: University of Florence, Italy (Casagli and Tofani 2019) and University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (Mikoš and Petkovšek 2019).

6 ICL-IPL Conference

ICL is holding its BOR annually, before COVID pandemic. This was associated with an annual conference called the IPL Symposium on Landslides (ICL 2018a). The proceedings of the recent conferences in years 2017, 2018, and 2019 are available in the pdf format on the web (Sassa and Dang 2017, 2018, 2019). The event is an occasion for ICL members to:

  • report on their latest research results, including results of on-going IPL projects and from WCoEs activities as an additional research output to their published articles in the journal Landslides; and

  • present their proposals for new IPL projects and new WCoEs as a part of the evaluation process.

The last IPL-KLC Hybrid Conference was in Kyoto, Japan, 14–16 March 2022. IPL was also organizing an International Forum entitled “Urbanization and Landslide Disaster” in Kyoto, Japan, dedicated to the Hiroshima Landslide Disaster of August, 2014 (Sassa et al. 2014).

Abbreviations

In this article, the following abbreviations were used:

BOR/ICL:

Board of Representative Meeting of ICL.

DRR:

Disaster Risk Reduction.

FAO:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

GPC/IPL:

Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides.

GPC/IPL-KLC:

Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides and Kyoto Landslide Commitment.

IBRD:

World Bank.

ICSU:

International Council for Science.

ICL:

International Consortium on Landslides.

IPL:

International Program on Landslides.

IUGS:

International Union of Geological Sciences.

JLS:

Japan Landslide Society.

KLC2020:

Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020.

KU:

Kyoto University.

SDG:

Sustainable Development Goal of the 2030 United Nations Agenda.

SFDRR 2015-2030:

Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030.

UNDP:

United Nations Development Program.

UNEP:

United Nations Environment Program.

UNESCO:

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

UN-ISDR:

United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction.

UNITWIN:

University Twinning and Networking Scheme.

UNU:

United Nations University.

WCDR:

United Nations World Conference on Disaster Reduction.

WCoEs:

World Centers of Excellence on Landslide Risk Reduction.

WFEO:

World Federation of Engineering Organizations.

WMO:

World Meteorological Organization.

WLF:

World Landslide Forum.