Predicting landslide and flooding vulnerabilities exacerbated by extreme rainfall events

With climate change potentially increasing the frequency and magnitude of extreme rainfall events, there is a growing demand for studies concerning the effects of landslides and flooding on ecosystem functioning and social infrastructure, particularly in monsoonal areas, such as Japan and Korea. In this collaboration, two physical geographers of SNU (Daehyun Kim and Jongmin Byun) and three environmental scientists of HU (Yuichi Hayakawa, Junjiro Negishi (Env. Earth Sci.), and Futoshi Nakamura (Agriculture)), as well as one guest speaker from Nagoya University (Hitoshi Saito), intend to address
these issues based on their lifetime dedication to the disciplines of geomorphology and ecology. Each of us will give a presentation of their past research about landslides and/or flooding driven by heavy rainfall events. Japan and Korea have generally similar climate conditions, but they also have significant differences in geomorphology and vegetation. There will certainly be possibilities for us to learn from each other, especially in terms of estimating and predicting the impacts of natural hazards and the resulting cost. These contents are closely related to the sustainability of both natural resources (e.g., vegetation, water, and soil) and social infrastructure for future generations.