Revisiting landslide risk terms: IAEG commission C-37 working group on landslide risk nomenclature

Significant effort has been devoted during the last few decades to the development of methodologies for landslide hazard and risk assessment. All of this work requires harmonization of the methodologies and terminology to facilitate communication within the landslide community, as well as with stakeholders and researchers from other disciplines. Currently, glossaries, and methodological recommendations exist for preparing landslide hazard and risk studies. Nevertheless, there is still debate on the usage of some terms and their implementation in practice.In 2016, the IAEG commission C-37 established a working group with the objective of preparing a standard multilingual glossary of landslide hazard and risk terms. The glossary aims for the international harmonization of the terms and definitions with those used in associated disciplines (e.g., seismology, hydrology) while considering landslides specifically. The glossary is based on previously published glossaries, including those prepared by ISSMGE TC32, FedIGS, JTC1, and UNISDR. This article presents comments on the meaning of some of the terms that have required further discussion. The English version of the glossary is also included.

Automated summary

Significant effort has been made to develop methodologies for landslide hazard and risk assessment, but there is still debate on the usage of terms and their implementation. Harmonization of methodologies and terminology is necessary to facilitate communication within the landslide community and with stakeholders from other disciplines. In 2016, the IAEG established a working group to prepare a multilingual glossary for landslide hazard and risk terms, aiming for international harmonization.