Keywords

1 Introduction

1.1 Background

The International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) and the ICL supporting organizations (each of five United Nations Organizations (UNESCO, WMO, FAO, UNDRR, UNU) and two global organizations in Science and Engineering (ISC and WFEO) exchanged the Memorandum of Understanding to promote the 2006 Tokyo Action Plan and established an International Programme on Landslides (IPL) in 2006 (Sassa 2006).

The Global Promotion Committee of the IPL (GPC/IPL) consists of the ICL and above seven global stakeholders. ICL and GPC/IPL organized triennial World Landslide Forum and established the ISDR-ICL Sendai Landslide Partnerships (Landslide Sendai Partnerships) 2015-2025 for global promotion of understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk. This partnership is a voluntary commitment to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Reduction 2015-2030 (Sassa 2015).

Partners has established the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020 (KLC2020) to continue and expand the Sendai Landslide Partnerships even after 2025 (the end of the Sendai Landslide Partnerships). The Kyoto Landslide Commitment is a Commitment to the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals, the New Urban Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement (Sassa 2021).

KLC2020 was signed by 90 United Nations, International and National organizations by 2020. At the opportunity of the sixth World Landslide Forum in Florence, Italy, 16 new organizations have signed it and joined the partnerships in the Plenary session of WLF6 on 14 November 2023.

All organizations including the ICL member organizations which have some aspects of activities related to understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk as their intrinsic missions are invited to KLC2020 members. Intrinsic missions of the whole KLC2020 members promote understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk, namely contribute to the Sendai Framework 2015-2030, the Sendai Landslide Partnerships 2015-2025 and SDGs-No.11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

1.2 Open Access Book Series

The worldwide information dissemination of the progress in landslide research and technology and strengthening of the network for landslide risk reduction is a key component of the success and sustainability of the Kyoto Landslide Commitment. The ICL in cooperation with ICL supporting organizations has published International full color journal “Landslides: Journal of International Consortium on Landslides” since 2004.

2022 impact factor of the journal is 6.7, the 2022 published page total is 3060 pages. It is free contribution. The journal has contributed to the publication of Landslide Science. University professors and students can read the article though the subscription fee is very expensive. Practitioners and community people in landslide prone areas can neither access Landslides, nor purchase single chapter (it is very expensive). Furthermore, the article is not always understandable for practitioners and community people, because articles are written for the same field of scientists.

Science and Practice, namely understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk need different approach.

Then, ICL and GPC/IPL and the panelists of the high-level panel discussion in the Fifth World Landslide Forum held in November 2021, Kyoto, Japan proposed and adopted the Launching Declaration of the ICL Open Access Book Series “Progress in Landslide Research and Technology” for the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020 on 3 November 2021, Sassa (2022).

The new open access book series “Progress in Landslide Research and Technology” was launched in 2022. The outline of two publications of the ICL new book series and the ICL journal since 2004 is summarized in Table 1.

Table 1 The aim and scope of ICL book series “P-LRT” and ICL Journal “Landslides”
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  • ICL book series aims to promote reducing landslide disaster risk, and publishes original article for practice and society, while ICL journals aims to promote understanding landslide disaster risk through the publication of original research for landslide science.

  • The whole book or any article of ICL book series are free to download to read, while any article published in the ICL journal is charged for downloading. It is very expensive for practitioners and community leaders.

  • Publication of an article in the ICL book series is charged, while publication of an article in ICL journal is free if accepted.

Some categories of the open access book series are unique for the purpose to promote practical application of landslide science and technology for landslide risk reduction. The categories of the book series, and planned page number and explanation of each category is compiled in Table 2.

Table 2 Categories of articles in the Book Series “P-LRT”
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In order to write an article understandable for practitioners without investigating many references and visual in figures/illustration/photo, the maximum page length is not decided, but the minimum page length is decided as 4 pages, 8 pages or 20 pages.

Category names of Original articles, Review articles, and Technical notes are the same with the Journal “Landslides.”

However, the content of each category the book is characterized for its aim of the book series for Practice and Society.

  • Original articles are such as practical applications of new models, new equipment, and other advanced research and technology

  • Review articles are for a thematic area of landslides, such as a review integrating a series of research and technology of the author or its group is also applicable.

  • Technical notes are technical note including case studies on landslides and landslide disaster risk reduction practice.

Category names of ICL landslide lessons,

IPL/WCoE/Kyoto Commitment, Teaching tools with online extras (video) and World Landslide Reports are different from Journal Landslides.

  • ICL landslide lessons are long articles by global and emerging experts with distinguished achievements in one of specific aspects in understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk. The minimum length is 20 pages, such as 40 pages, or 80 pages.

  • IPL/WCoE/Kyoto Commitment: This category was included in ICL Journal “Landslides” before the start of this book series. Aim of this category is for reducing landslide disaster. It is suitable for ICL book series. So, this category in the Landslides was terminated from 2022.

  • Teaching tools with online extras (video): This category is to promote practical application by providing how to use advanced equipment, software and technologies with video tutorials.

  • World Landslide Reports: This is information in and from developing countries. Article publication for this category is free. However, the total pages of articles in this category are around 40 pages such as four 10-pages article from various countries and regions per issue.

2 Front Covers of the Published and Publishing Issues

Figures 1, 2 and 3 show the front cover of Volume 1, Issue 1 and Issue 2, Volume 2, Issue 1 and Issue 2, Volume 3, Issue 1. Two issues of Volume 1 were published in January 2023 and two issues of Volume 2 were published in December 2023. Volume 3, Issue 1 has just been published.

Fig. 1
2 front covers. The cover on the left reads Progress in Landslide Research and Technology Volume 1 Issue 1, 2022. The cover on the right reads Progress in Landslide Research and Technology Volume 1 Issue 2, 2022. The Springer logo is at the bottom right corner.

Published cover of Volume 1, Issue 1 and Volume 1, Issue 2

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Fig. 2
2 front covers. The cover on the left reads Progress in Landslide Research and Technology Volume 2 Issue 1, 2023. The cover on the right reads Progress in Landslide Research and Technology, Volume 2 Issue 2, 2023. The Springer logo is at the bottom right corner.

Published cover of Volume 2, Issue 1 and Volume 2, Issue 2 in 2023

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Fig. 3
A front cover. The cover reads Progress in Landslide Research and Technology, Volume 3 Issue 1, 2024. The Springer logo is at the bottom right corner.

Book cover for Volume 3, Issue 1

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The cover photo and cover editors of Volume 3, Issue 1 was decided in October 2023, though he cover design will be made by Springer Nature.

Each cover photo is selected from the published articles in each issue and decided by the all editors’ zoom meeting over the world (very early morning to midnight from Europe, Asia and America continents).

Cover photos used from Volume 1, Issue 1 to Volume 3, Issue 1 are explained as below.

  • Volume 1, Issue 1: Aranayake landslide in Kegalle District, Sri Lanka. It occurred in May 2016, after a long rainfall. It killed 127 persons and destroyed 75 houses.

  • Volume 1, Issue 2: A large-scale rapid landslide was induced by the mainshock of the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake. The landslide hit the Aso-Ohashi Bridge on the national road and it disappeared.

  • Volume 2, Issue 1: Buzulgan landslide occurred in August 2020 and blocked the Gerkhozhan-Su River valley in Northern Caucasus of Russia.

  • Volume 2, Issue 2: In the Thompson River valley, south-central British Columbia, Canada, thick (>100 m) accumulations of glacial lake sediments, tills, and outwash have a complex history of sudden rapid translational failure and liquefaction in the past, and slower rotational slumping along toe slopes, head scarps, and tributary channels at present.

  • Volume 3, Issue 1: Aratozawa landslide induced the Iwate-Miyagi Inland Earthquake in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The total volume of this landslide is estimated to be 67 million m3. The frontal part of this landslide entered into the Aratozawa dam reservoir and caused a tsunami of up to 9 m.

3 Management of P-LRT

Important matters on the management of P-LRT are examined and decided by the periodical all editors zoom meeting crossing the world (America, Europe and Asia from very early morning to midnight).

3.1 Basic Components for P-RLT

Publication of this open access book series is only possible under the following basic three components of voluntary contribution.

  1. 1.

    Authors to contribute to this book series

  2. 2.

    Voluntary editors/reviewers to review articles of this book series

  3. 3.

    Financial and other supports to publish this book series.

3.2 Editors on the Front Cover

The front cover of each issue is shown in Figs. 1, 2 and 3. The editors on the front cover are listed in Table 3.

Table 3 Editors on the front cover
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The cover editors on the initial volume are core editors for publication: Editor-in-Chief, three Assistant Editor-in-Chief, and the publication director of the Editorial office. Those five persons are working as EIC role in the Editorial Manager of P-LRT (EquinOCS).

The number of cover editors has been increased from 5 to 12 as shown in Table 3. Since Vol. 1, Issue 2, the editors on the front cover are alphabetical order as seen in Figs. 1, 2 and 3.

Within three basic components, authors are the most important component. Authors as well as editors writing more than two articles in the past issues (up to 3) were invited to be cover editors on the issue.

Book Processing Charge (BPC) as well as the financial supports from KLC2020 official promoters are the financial source. The International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) is the leading host organization of the KLC2020 official promoters. The amount of BPC is different in regular members, KLC official promoters, ICL full members, associates, supporters. BPC for each type of authors is listed in Table 4.

Table 4 Book processing charge
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3.3 New Awards

The ICL launched the new open access book series in 2022. To promote the authors contributing to landslide risk reduction for society through writing articles, the ICL created one new award and revised one existing award.

  1. I.

    ICL Book Article Award

  • Award is free BPC for 20 pages.

  • The effective period is one year after the decision of the award.

  • The number of annual awards is 1-3 in different categories.

  1. (1)

    Candidate nomination (around 10) is from EIC members (5) of OCS-web and a few editors (1-3) who read almost all articles.

  2. (2)

    Nomination of Award (2-3) is voting by editors of P-LRT who attend the periodical (around 2-4 times for one issue) editorial meeting of the Book.

The first awardees of this award for Volume 1 was decided by the all editors meeting in October 2023 as shown in Table 5.

  1. II.

    IPL-KLC Award for Success

  • Award is 3000 USD by cash.

  • The number of awards for each Forum is 1-3 in different categories (similar to the previous IPL Award for Success).

  1. (1)

    Candidates are authors of ICL open access book series (prerequisite condition) and Journal “Landslides” to report IPL-KLC activities.

  2. (2)

    The first nomination is around 10 from EIC members (5) of P-LRT and the screening editors of Landslides who monthly read submitted articles.

  3. (3)

    The approval is by IPL-KLC Global Promotion Committee.

  4. (4)

    This award for success will be approved at the 2023 IPL-KLC Global Promotion Committee on 13 November 2023 in Florence, Italy.

Table 5 Awardees of the ICL Book Article Award
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4 Countries /Regions of the Authors

  • Figure 4 presents the number of authors from each country, United Nations organization, and international organization in the six categories of articles published in Vol.1, Issue 1. The first issue was contributed by authors from 24 countries and an United Nations organization (UNESCO), and an international Society. Twenty authors from Italy and Japan are largest.

  • Figure 5 presents the number of authors from 18 countries in Volume 1, Issue 2. Thirty-one authors from Japan is the largest, followed by 14 authors from Vietnam.

  • Figure 6 presents the number of authors from 13 countries in Volume 2, Issue 1. Twenty-one authors from Vietnam and 10-15 authors from Italy, Croatia, Japan and Russia.

  • Figure 7 presents the number of authors from 21 countries in Volume 2, Issue 2. Twenty-three authors from Italy is the largest, 12-17 authors from China and Croatia.

  • Figure 8 presents the number of authors from 12 countries and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) in Volume 3, Issue 1. Thirty authors from Japan is the largest and 10-14 authors from Sri Lanka, China and Vietnam.

Fig. 4
2 bar graphs of the number of authors versus country or region. The highest number of authors are from Italy and Japan with the number at 20 each. The lowest number of authors is 1 for Ireland, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Republic of Korea, Spain, Vietnam, and I G S.

The number of authors from each country/region in the six categories of articles published in Vol. 1, Issue 1

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Fig. 5
A bar graph of the number of authors versus country or region. The highest number of authors is for Japan at 31. It is followed by Vietnam at 14. The lowest number of authors is 1 for Denmark, Iran, Nepal, Slovenia, and Spain.

The number of authors from each country/region in the seven categories of articles published in Vol. 1, Issue 2

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Fig. 6
A bar graph plots the number of authors versus country or region. The data is as follows. Canada, 6. China, 7. Croatia, 14. Colombia, 2. Georgia, 1. Japan, 13. Mexico, 12. Netherlands, 1. Russia, 11. Slovenia, 1. Spain, 2. Italy, 15. Vietnam, 21.

The number of authors from each country/region in the seven categories of articles published in Vol. 2, Issue 1

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Fig. 7
A bar graph of number of authors versus country. The data is as follows. Bangladesh, 2. Canada, 4. China, 17. Croatia, 12. France, 1. Germany, 1. Indonesia, 3. India, 6. Japan, 8. Mexico, 2. Philippines, 5. Russia, 2. Slovenia, 1. Serbia, 5. Saudi Arabia, 2. Sri Lanka, 2. Italy, 23. Switzerland, 1. U K, 4. U S A, 3. Vietnam, 4.

The number of authors from each country/region in the seven categories of articles published in Vol. 2, Issue 2

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Fig. 8
A bar graph of number of authors versus country or region. The data is as follows. Bangladesh, 1. China, 14. Colombia, 2. Japan, 30. Mexico, 5. Russia, 4. Slovenia, 7. Sri Lanka, 13. Italy, 7. Switzerland, 1. UNDRR, 1. U S A, 1. Vietnam, 10.

The number of authors from each country/region in the seven categories of articles published in Vol. 3, Issue 1

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5 Composition of Categories of each Issue

Table 6 presents the total pages of each issue, and its breakdown including number of articles and page number of each category, front matters, back matters. and others from Volume 1, Issue 1 to Volume 3, Issue 1.

Table 6 Total page and Breakdown of Vol. 1, Issue 1 and Issue 2, Vol. 2, Issue 1 and Issue 2, Vol. 3, Issue 1
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Figure 9 is a graphical review of article number and article page numbers in each category since Volume 1, Issue 1 to Volume 3, Issue 1. The portions of original articles are the largest through all issues both in number and pages.

Fig. 9
6 pie charts. Volume 1 issue 1, a, 27 articles with original at 40.74, b, 390 pages with original articles at 34.62. Volume 1 issue 2, a, 30 articles with original at 43.33, b, 396 pages with original articles at 40.66. Volume 2 issue 1, a, 22 articles with original at 40.91, b, 382 pages with original articles at 29.58.figure 9

Share (%) of categories in Vol.1-1, Vol.1-2, Vol.2-1, Vol.2-2, Vol.3-1

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The category of IPL/WCoE/KLC (purple color) is core of this book series. This category of articles is published in all issues. Technical Notes & Case studies were published in all issues, though the page number is not large.

  • Articles of the ICL landslide lessons (Green color: Minimum 20 pages is necessary) started from Volume 2, Issue 1. This article is important for capacity development and contribution for practical application of advanced research and technology.

  • Teaching tools (dark green color) including video tutorial is the important article for technical transfer. This category of articles was published except Volume 3, Issue 1.

  • Editorial/Preface was polished other than Volume 2, Issue 2. The initial volume published the ICL history and IPL review in this category.

  • Articles for the category of World Landslide Report are free BPC to promote contribution from developing countries. Articles on landslides in developing countries are also included in this category to promote articles reporting landslide disaster and risk reduction in the countries/regions where reports are seldomly published. The total page of the category of this article is limited to be around 40 pages/issue

6 Call for Articles to Volume 3, Issue 2

The Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020 was launched in 2020. The Sixth World Landslide Forum and ICL Board meeting and the Global Promotion Committee of the IPL and KLC2020 was organized in Florence, Italy on 13-17 November 2023.

The Plenary session programme is uploaded in WLF6 web https://wlf6.org/opening-plenary-session/.

KLC2020 General Conference 2023 and High-level panel discussion were organized on 14 November 2023.

16 new signatories of KLC2020 after 90 signatories in 2020 were invited to attend this general conference and sign the KLC2020. A joint signing ceremony and a joint photo together with all panelists of the high-level panel discussion to adopt the Florence Declaration on Landslide Risk Reduction for further development of KLC2020 were organized.

This new open access book series “Progress in Landslide Research and Technology” is a core activity and platform for the KLC2020 for Practice and Society. Landslide researchers, engineers and practitioners were invited to contribute to Volume 3, Issue 2 published in 2024.

Contribution of an article for understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk is an activity of the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020, which is a commitment to the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals, the New Urban Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement.

Contact: Kyoji Sassa, KLC2020 Secretariat klc2020@landslides.org.