Debris-flow hazards mitigation : mechanics, monitoring, modeling, and assessment

Debris Flow Hazards Mitigation: Mechanics, Monitoring, Modeling and Assessment

Earlier this month, from 10th to 13th June 2019, the Seventh International Conference on Debris-Flow Hazards Mitigation was held in Golden, Colorado. This was a substantial meeting focusing on the mechanics, monitoring, modeling and assessment of this very major hazard.  Only yesterday I highlighted a serious debris flow disaster in the Trabzon region of  Turkey.  According to the organisers of the conference, the aim of major objective of the meeting was to provide a forum for international researchers, engineers, and policy makers to exchange ideas and promote communication to advance the scientific understanding of debris-flow hazards as well as approaches to assess and mitigate debris-flow risk to infrastructure and people.  It looks to have been an excellent event, which included 14 keynote presentations, 38 presentations and 86 posters.

Remarkably, the conference hosts have posted the proceedings of the meeting online, free to download.  The volume consists of 134 papers looking at all aspects of debris flows.  There are some detailed case studies; analyses of past and historic events; simulations and models; physical experiments; and descriptions of mitigation approaches.  Some of the papers examine events that I have described on this site, such as the 2018 Montecito debris flows in California, whilst others look at events that are new to me.  The quality of the papers is very high, and there are some fascinating contributions.

The organisers have kindly posted the various sections of the volume separately, as well as a single PDF for the entire volume.  These are listed below:-

• Front matter and table of contents (610.0Kb)
• Processes and mechanics (pages 1 – 75) (6.497Mb)
• Monitoring, detection, and warning (pages 76 – 229) (24.40Mb)
• Experiments and modeling (pages 230 – 474) (19.88Mb)
• Role of disturbance (pages 475 – 547) (7.476Mb)
• Case studies and hazard assessments (pages 548 – 918) (34.96Mb)
• Engineering and mitigation (pages 919 – 1050) (11.15Mb)
• Author index (pages 1051 – 1055) (549.7Kb)
• Full conference proceedings (98.98Mb)

This is a very helpful record of the state of the art in debris flow science and engineering.  The next meeting the Eighth International Conference on Debris-Flow Hazards Mitigation will be held in Turin, Italy, presumably in 2023.  Details will be available in due course.

Reference

Kean, J.W., Coe, J.A., Santi, P.M. and Guillen, B.K. 2019.  Debris-flow hazards mitigation : mechanics, monitoring, modeling, and assessment. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Debris-Flow Hazards Mitigation, Golden, Colorado, USA, June 10-13, 201. Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists, Special Publication 28.