Bali- One of the big challenges in the infrastructure planning and development is landslides. This type of disaster, however, also opens new opportunities in research and technology in landslide mitigation and modeling as well as early warning system technology. Slope stabilisation is another issue that progresses rapidly in the past two decades. All of these issues emerged in the international conference, SLOPE 2015, in Kuta Bali from 27-30 September 2015.
The SLOPE conference is joined by hundreds of researchers, academics, and disaster experts from around the world with 90 papers to be presented in 15 sub-themes.
Rector of UGM, Prof. Ir. Dwikorita Karnawati, M.Sc., Ph.D., who is also Vice President of International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) became keynote speaker. Other speakers are Prof. Kenji Ishihara (Chuo University), Dr. Surya Prakash (NIDM India), Prof. Ikuo Tohwata (ISSMGE Asia), Dr. Surono (Badan Geologi ESDM), Prof. Harianto Rahardjo (Nanyang Technological Univ Singapore), Prof. Sang-Seom Jeong (Yosei University, South Korea), etc.
Dwikorita whilst delivering her keynote speech entitled “Total Quality Capacity Development for Landslide Mitigation” said that currently there are many researches and publications in landslides. Unfortunately, there are still casualties when a landslide occurs, also infrastructure damage. Hence, disaster mitigation should be based on local wisdom. “Strategy and method applications that are suitable to the local wisdom are less costly, easy and attractive,” she said.
Capacity building, said Dwikorta, should also pay attention to the sustainability of programme form start to end that involves many targets, actors, media, and communication. “It is also important to involve socio-enterpreneurs and private sector as well as industry,” she said.
Dwikorita further presented about the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) that promotes research and capacity building in landslide disaster risk reduction through multi-disciplined collaborations with various countries.