Solutions for local regional national scale rational landslide risk assessment and management
Jun 5th, 2014
Riskope’s experts have worked since the ’80s in landslides assessment and in particular for Solutions for local regional national scale rational landslide risk assessment and management . Indeed, F. Oboni was the head geotechnical researcher of a Federally funded Swiss Landslide research team that developed internationally recognized pioneering work.

Landslide in the Alps
F. Oboni was also a member of a committee of IUGS that literally wrote the first glossary for Landslide Risk Management at the end of the ’90s. This long practice with landslides and other geo-hazards in various continents:
- Europe
- North America
- Latin America (Peru, Chile, Brasil)
- Central America (Mexico),
- Africa (Gabon, Ghana, Madagascar),
- Oceania.
has helped developing specific methodologies for regional/national landslide risk assessment, mapping and management.
Solutions for local regional national scale rational landslide risk assessment and management
Riskope regularly gives seminars and animates workshops in G8 and developing countries on the theme of landslides’ and other geo-hazards risk management.
In fact, Riskope also masters the various aspects of risk communication and crisis response having participated in:
- public hearings,
- mediation and having prepared
- evacuation plans and disaster resumption plans.
Riskope provides guidance in discerning between “fast developing, one time” events or the probability of an acceleration when dealing with large, slow creeping extant failures. The distinction is vital for guiding the allotment and planning of sustainable and reasonable civil protection measures.
Geohazards Consequences are dealt in detail and a framework to undertake a holistic consequence analysis, including human health and safety, infrastructures, direct and indirect impacts has been developed. Regional governements and other entities have indeed to develop awareness for domino effects (cascading consequences) generated by landslides and societal tolerance.
Risk representation
Risk representation including modern and innovative techniques, is compatible with ISO 31000 principles and the studies are compatible with:
the new ISO 55000 (asset management) and
ISO 22301 (Societal Security – Business Continuity Management System) codes.
Crisis potential, communication requirements and preparedness plans are tackled including alert criteria and their implications on civil protection.
Landslide prioritization concepts are defined, using societal acceptability thresholds. This leads to showing that some risks:
- are tolerable,
- others can be mitigated, and
- some may require strategic shifts in region’s management and land use, as they fall in the “unmanageable” category.
In addition to proper prioritization it is critical that clear records of risk management decision are kept for generation to come. Additionally rational decision making gives a much needed protection to the decision maker in case of accidents.
Below is a list of selected landslides’ risks papers. If you want to know more, contact us!
Selected landslide papers
- Oboni, F., Bourdeau, P.L. & Bonnard, Ch. (1984) – Probabilistic Analysis of Swiss Landslides – Proc. IVth Int. Symp. on Landslides, Vol. 2, ISL, Toronto, 1984, pp 473-478.
- Oboni, F. & Egger, P. (1985) – A Probabilistic Analysis of the Vajont Slide – Proc. Vth Int. Conf. on Numerical Methods in Geomechanics, Nagoya, pp 1013-1018.
- Oboni, F. (1988) – General Report: Analysis Methods and Forecasting of Behaviour – Proc. Vth Int. Symp. on Landslides, Lausanne. Vol.1, pp 491-499.
- Oboni, F. & Angelillo, V.T.G (1993) – Risk Maps for Rockfall Prone Areas: Environmental/human aspects – Proc. Int. Conf. on Environmental Management. Geo-Water and Engineering Aspects, Wollongong, Australia, pp 715-720.
- Oboni, F., Oldendorff, G. (1997) – Integrating Risk and Crisis Management: Meeting the Needs of a Sophisticated Society – IUGS Working Group on Landslides Committee on Risk Assessment, Honolulu, 1997.
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1988
- B. Abbott, I Bruce, T. Keegan, F. Oboni, W.Savigny, A Methodology for the Assessment of Rockfall Hazard and Risk Along Linear Transportation Corridors, IUGS Conference, Vancouver, 1988
- B. Abbott, I Bruce, T. Keegan, F. Oboni, W. Savigny, Application of a New Methodology for the Management of Rockfall Risk along a Railway, IUGS Conference, Vancouver, 1988
- Oboni, F., Geo-Environmental Risk: Assessment, Analysis, Management and Planning, SIGA 98 State of the Art Report, Sao Paolo, Brazil, 1998
- R.S. Read, K. W. Savigny, F. Oboni, D. M. Cruden, C. W. Langenberg, Geotechnical hazard assessment of the south flank of Frank Slide, Hillcrest, Alberta, Geo Canada 2000, The Millenium Geoscience Summit, 2000.
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2000
- Oboni, F., Ten Years Experience in Linear Facilities Risk Assessment (LFRA), San Francisco ICASP9 2003
- Oboni, F., Velocity-Rain Relationship at the Cassass Landslide, Landslide Risk Management Conference, Vancouver, June 2005
- L. Piccarelli, F. Oboni, S.G. Evans, G. Mostyn, R. Fell, Hazard characterization and quantification, State of the Art Paper, Landslide Risk Management Conference, Vancouver, June 2005
- Oboni, F., Angelino, C. , Moreno, J. , Using Artificial Intelligence In An Integrated Risk Management Program For A Large Alpine Landslide, International Conference ‘Climate Change – Challenges and Solutions’, May 21-24th 2007, Ventnor, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom.
- Improving Sustainability through Reasonable Risk and Crisis Management, by Franco & César Oboni, ISBN 978-0-9784462-0-8, 2007 http://www.riskope.com/knowledge-centre/tool-box/books/
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2009
- C. Oboni, F. Oboni, Long Term Effects Evaluation of a National Typhoon/Flooding Protection Program; Fima – Italian Federation Of Applied Mathematics, 3rd International Conference on “Regional Protection and Management of Environmental Risks”, Gressoney, Aosta Valley, Italy, January 19-22, 2009
- F. Oboni, C. Angelino, B. Visconti, The Cassas Landslide and its impacts on an international & Olympic transportation corridor: studies, monitoring, solution and crisis plans, Second World Landslide Forum – 3-7 October 2011, Rome
- F. Oboni, C. Oboni, C. Angelino, B. Visconti, Integrated hydrogeological and environmental restoration of landslides affecting a large asbestos mine dry tailings dump, Tailings and Mine Waste 2011, Vancouver, BC, November 6 to 9, 2011
- Oboni, C., Oboni F., Factual and Foreseeable Reliability of Tailings Dams and Nuclear Reactors -a Societal Acceptability Perspective, Tailings and Mine Waste 2013, Banff, AB, November 6 to 9, 2013.
- F., Oboni, C., Oboni, Ethics and transparent risk communication start with proper risk assessment methodologies, EGU General Assembly 2014, Vienna, May, 2014
Tagged with: crisis response, evacuation plans and disaster resumption plans, geo-hazards, landslide risk assessment, landslide risk management, public hearings, regional/national scale, risk communication
Category: Consequences, Hazard, Mitigations, Probabilities, Risk analysis, Risk management, Tolerance/Acceptability
I read a lot of interesting posts here.