Landslide science as a new scientific discipline

Abstract

Landslides cause great disasters and their impact to society is very great. Thus, they are studied in many scientific and engineering fields. However, studies on landslides from various fields have not been conducted in an integrated manner. There was neither international society, nor international journal, and the meaning of landslides was not defined internationally and interdisciplinary. During the United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) in 1990-2000, landslide researchers worldwide agreed the definition of landslides as the movement of a mass of rock, debris or earth down a slope. This is a basis for the development of the study of landslides as a scientific field. This paper describes the progress in landslide science as an integrated discipline together with the development of international landslide community and a global cooperation platform as its infrastructure. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.