For the third time since 2011, UGM has succeeded in earning an award as a World Center of Excellence in Landslide Disaster Risk Reduction which was given by UNESCO and United Nations International Strategy on Disaster Risk Reduction (UN-ISDR) at the World Landslide Forum 4 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 30May 2017.
The award was presented to Prof. Ir. Dwikorita Karnawati who was assisted by Dr. Teuku Faisal Fathani and Dr. Wahyu Wilopo. Deputy of Logistics and Equipment of National Disaster Management Agency (BNBP), Rudi Phadmanto, and Director of Awareness of BNBP, Medi Herlianto, also attended the event.
According to Dwikorita, this award will run from 2017 until 2020 and it was presented for the achievement of the research by Dwikorita Karnawati and the team in landslide disaster risk reduction followed by downstreaming the result of the mitigation technology and early warning system development for society and industry.
“This award is mainly presented for the superiority of the technology development based on human and technical systems to realize a community-based landslide early warning system,” said Dwikorita on Sunday (4/6).
This technology development is an advanced development from conventional identification that is verified by numerical calculation, thus creating synergy between traditional (local) and digital technology that is controlled by the communities in the areas prone to landslide.
Since 2007, this landslide research team has been developing five generations of the Observation and Detection System which has succeeded in getting patented, including Manual GAMA Extensometer, Digital GAMA Extensometer both for observing on and under the surface, as well as Manual and Digital GAMA Tiltmeter.
These systems have been implemented through the collaboration with National and Regional Disaster Management Agencies in 25 provinces in Indonesia (at 75 locations) as well as various industries in the fields of mining and energy, including PT. Pertamina Geothermal, PT. Freeport, PT. INCO, PT. Arutmin, and even PT. United Mercury Myanmar has also installed these systems at its mining locations in Myanmar.
For the near future, UGM has been preparing Teaching Industry which is an integration between this Research Excellence Center and Vocational School to mass produce these technologies. It is very strategic to strengthen the sovereignty of Indonesian Science and Technology through import substitution of disaster mitigation technologies, particularly for landslide disasters.