International Cooperations
World Landslide Forum 3 Opened in Beijing
On June 3, World Landslide Forum 3 Opened in Beijing, with "Landslide Risks Mitigation: Toward a Safer Geo-environment" as the theme. Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and Wang Min, vice minister of Land and Resources (MLR) addressed respectively and issued certificates for the organizations, including China Geological Survey (CGS) and United States Geological Survey (USGS), who won the honor of “World Centre of Excellence on Landslide Risk Mitigation”, and individuals who won Year 2011-2014 Landslide Research Achievement Award.
Irina Bokova pointed out that natural disasters like landslide caused serious impact on human society. She hoped all nations in the world would work together to advance the level of science and technology, enhance public awareness of prevention through public education, reduce disaster risks so as to build a safer geo-environment for the whole community. Wang Min stated that Chinese government paid high attention to geo-hazard prevention and Ministry of Land and Resources attached great importance to this work and united governments at all levels and related departments and all sectors of society to carry out a comprehensive prevention and control work and had already gained great achievements. In last decade, there are over 15,000 examples of successful avoidance from geo-hazards across China and more than 530,000 people have successfully avoided geo-hazard risks. Currently, Chinese governmentwas implementing the National Strategic Plan on disaster prevention and mitigation，and made great efforts to speed up the establishmentof disaster investigation and evaluation system, monitoring and early warning system, prevention and control system and emergency systembefore 2020 so as to basically eliminate the threat of hiddenhazards and reduce casualties and property losses significantly.
Wang Min said that China hoped to further strengthen exchanges with international counterparts and organizations in terms of geo-hazard prevention. Firstly, strengthen geo-hazard exchanges and take full advantage of government departments, research institutions and non-governmental organizations to create favorable conditions for personnel training, implementation of major projects for prevention and emergency response to serious trans-boundarydisasters. Secondly, carry out technical cooperation in the key areas and the fields vulnerable to disasters and jointly carry out the theoretical research of natural disaster monitoring, early warning and device development under extreme and abnormal weather conditions so as to enhance preventive and controlcapabilities for frequent and major disasters. Thirdly, Strengthen mutual support among countries for better preventive and controlperformance.
After the opening ceremony, a high-level panel discussion was held. Delegates from UNESCO,UNISDR (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction), WMO (World Meteorological Organization), CGS, ICSU (International Council of Scientific Unions) and ICL (International Consortium on Landslides) delivered keynote speeches respectively. In the afternoon of June 3, Huang Runqiu from Chengdu University of Technology, Baum from USGS, SassaKyoji from Kyoto University and Solheim, from Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) gave academic lectures respectively.
This forum will last for 4 days. More than 500 delegates from over 50 countries will conduct academic communication on 25 subjects,such as the mechanism of landslide, monitoring and early warning, new technologies, landslide hazard mitigationin urban areasor the areas where major projects were constructed, landslide prevention and reconstruction of quake-hit areas, mass predication and disaster prevention of landslide and emergency handling, capacity building and policy research, etc. This forum is co-sponsored by UNESCO, WMO,UNFAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), UNISDR, UNU (United Nations University), ICSU, The World Federation of Engineers,IUGS(International Union of Geological Sciences) and Ministry of Land and Resources of the People’s Republic of China, and undertaken by ICL and CGS.
On this forum, the well-known geo-hazard prevention expert from China, YinYueping officially took over the chairmanship of the International Consortium on Landslides for the new session.
Irina Bokova pointed out that natural disasters like landslide caused serious impact on human society. She hoped all nations in the world would work together to advance the level of science and technology, enhance public awareness of prevention through public education, reduce disaster risks so as to build a safer geo-environment for the whole community. Wang Min stated that Chinese government paid high attention to geo-hazard prevention and Ministry of Land and Resources attached great importance to this work and united governments at all levels and related departments and all sectors of society to carry out a comprehensive prevention and control work and had already gained great achievements. In last decade, there are over 15,000 examples of successful avoidance from geo-hazards across China and more than 530,000 people have successfully avoided geo-hazard risks. Currently, Chinese governmentwas implementing the National Strategic Plan on disaster prevention and mitigation，and made great efforts to speed up the establishmentof disaster investigation and evaluation system, monitoring and early warning system, prevention and control system and emergency systembefore 2020 so as to basically eliminate the threat of hiddenhazards and reduce casualties and property losses significantly.
Wang Min said that China hoped to further strengthen exchanges with international counterparts and organizations in terms of geo-hazard prevention. Firstly, strengthen geo-hazard exchanges and take full advantage of government departments, research institutions and non-governmental organizations to create favorable conditions for personnel training, implementation of major projects for prevention and emergency response to serious trans-boundarydisasters. Secondly, carry out technical cooperation in the key areas and the fields vulnerable to disasters and jointly carry out the theoretical research of natural disaster monitoring, early warning and device development under extreme and abnormal weather conditions so as to enhance preventive and controlcapabilities for frequent and major disasters. Thirdly, Strengthen mutual support among countries for better preventive and controlperformance.
After the opening ceremony, a high-level panel discussion was held. Delegates from UNESCO,UNISDR (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction), WMO (World Meteorological Organization), CGS, ICSU (International Council of Scientific Unions) and ICL (International Consortium on Landslides) delivered keynote speeches respectively. In the afternoon of June 3, Huang Runqiu from Chengdu University of Technology, Baum from USGS, SassaKyoji from Kyoto University and Solheim, from Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) gave academic lectures respectively.
This forum will last for 4 days. More than 500 delegates from over 50 countries will conduct academic communication on 25 subjects,such as the mechanism of landslide, monitoring and early warning, new technologies, landslide hazard mitigationin urban areasor the areas where major projects were constructed, landslide prevention and reconstruction of quake-hit areas, mass predication and disaster prevention of landslide and emergency handling, capacity building and policy research, etc. This forum is co-sponsored by UNESCO, WMO,UNFAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), UNISDR, UNU (United Nations University), ICSU, The World Federation of Engineers,IUGS(International Union of Geological Sciences) and Ministry of Land and Resources of the People’s Republic of China, and undertaken by ICL and CGS.
On this forum, the well-known geo-hazard prevention expert from China, YinYueping officially took over the chairmanship of the International Consortium on Landslides for the new session.