[02/26] IHRR research presented at the International Conference on Geomorphology highlights new work on landslide inventory reliability and operational forecasting of rain-induced landslide under uncertainty.
Prof. Fausto Guzzetti of Durham University’s Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience contributed to the 11th International Conference on Geomorphology , held in Christchurch, New Zealand, from 2 - 6 February 2026.
The work presented at the conference addressed two key challenges in landslide risk science: the reliability of landslide inventories and the treatment of uncertainty in the prediction of rainfall-induced slope failures.
One contribution reviewed global practices in landslide mapping, emphasising that inventory maps are essential for understanding slope-failure distribution and statistics, yet their quality and validation are rarely assessed systematically. Improving evaluation standards is critical for hazard assessment, land-use planning, and risk mitigation.
A second study explored how empirical rainfall thresholds ad AI-based landslide forecasts used in landslide early-warning systems are affected by uncertainties in rainfall measurements and landslide timing. The work proposes approaches to explicitly incorporate these uncertainties into prediction frameworks, improving the robustness of operational warning systems.
Together, these contributions highlight ongoing international research aimed at strengthening both the scientific foundations and operational applications of landslide hazard assessment and risk reduction.
Photo credit: Massimo Melillo, CNR IRPI
Prof. Fausto Guzzetti delivers a talk on short- to long-term forecasting of rainfall-induced landslides in the session “Addressing Uncertainties in Landslide Prediction Across Spatial and Temporal Scales” at ICG 2026.
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