Development of new tools and techniques for the analysis and risk management of landslides and related geohazards

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Landslides and related natural and man-made geological hazards (geohazards), including breaches of mine tailings dams, can travel long distances and therefore pose a significant risk around the world to people, property and the environment. The long-term goal of this research program is to reduce the losses caused by these events by developing a suite of tools and techniques that improve the ability of engineers and geoscientists to answer the following questions:******What is the probability that a landslide or related geohazard of a given size will occur?***If it occurs, what is the probability it will reach a certain location of interest (e.g. a community)?***If it reaches that location, what is the probability it will cause a certain degree of damage?***If the resulting risk is unacceptable, how much can it be reduced with various mitigation options?******To work toward this long-term goal, the objectives of this research program over the next five years are to improve existing tools and develop new tools that can be used to forecast the motion of the following key geohazards: debris flows, debris floods, tailings dam breaches, shoreline erosion and landslide-generated waves. All of these geohazards present unique modelling challenges that will be a focus of our work. For example, we will be studying ways to predict where debris flows may jump out of their channels and suddenly change direction, a characteristic that makes them a challenging geohazard to reliably assess and effectively mitigate. We will also focus on work that will provide better guidance to engineers and geoscientists on what input parameter values to use in their computer simulations.******Our research method will be based on the following four elements: 1) field data collection and mapping of past geohazard events using state-of-the-art methods, including a unique opportunity to observe erosion and landslides caused by the filling of a new hydroelectric reservoir, 2) statistical analysis of the data we collect to look for trends that can be used to predict how far future events may travel, 3) development and calibration of computer models that can be used to predict what direction, how far and how fast future events may travel, and 4) laboratory experiments, in collaboration with other researchers, to study underlying fundamental processes that influence the behaviour of these geohazards. Through the course of this work, students in this program will gain expert knowledge of these geohazards and develop specialized skills that are in high demand in practice, where they will continue to contribute to our long-term goal of geohazard loss reduction.