Why landslide mitigation is important?
The monsoons may bring life and prosperity to our agrarian societies, but it also has harmful consequences, especially for hilly regions.
The monsoons have already begun to wreak havoc this year with persistent heavy rains leading to floods and landslides in many parts of Northeastern India that have claimed more than 80 lives according to government officials in the month of July 2017 (Indian Express, 2017), along with large numbers of people displaced by floods or isolated due to landslides.Prominent among these is a large landslide in Arunachal Pradesh’s Papum Pare district on 11th July that claimed at least 5 lives with many more missing (PTI, 2017). Large landslides have also occurred in the hills through which NH29 runs, connecting Nagaland to Manipur.
Landslides in highways create problems in sending aid and supplies to people who have been affected by other disasters in places that may be connected by these roads. Such was the case here, with timely aid and supplies failing to reach people affected by other landslides in Manipur (Indian Express, July 13th 2017). Such landslides triggered by heavy downpour had blocked the Manali-Leh highway on June 30th, 2017, reports the Times of India, with a number of landslides blocking access to the highway for tourists (ToI, 2017).
India has witnessed a number of landslides in the period between the end of June and the start of July, with the latest in Devidhar village in Shimla district, Himachal Pradesh on 18th July, 2017 claiming the life of a child (S. Sharma, ToI, 2017). Landslides across western Maharashtra, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and northeast India have caused havoc so far in the 2017 Monsoon season. People living in mountainous regions fear landslides as it is sudden and devastating. However, a concerted effort to understand landslides can help predict it and enable mitigation measures to be put in place. Possible mitigation measures to check occurrence of landslides and the possible triggers for themcan then be enabled.
What are landslides?
Landslides are the downslope movement of soil, rock and organic materials due to gravitational force. Landslides occur across the world in all possible climactic conditions. Contrary to the assumption that landslides are triggered only by soil moisture, there is a wide range of factors working together that trigger different types of landslides.
Landslides are classified according to the particular method of slope failure, which is grouped into characteristic failure types. There are different types of movement associated with a particular landslide type. These movements can be fall, topple, slide, spread or flow.
Fall landslides are the decoupling of soil or rock from a steep slope or from a surface where there is minimal shear displacement, and as such, the material falls. They occur on steep or vertical slopes. Other than undercutting by water bodies, fall landslides can occur due to weathering, disturbances due to natural events like earthquakes, or by human activities such as excavations and building. Mitigation measures for fall landslides can include installing protective covers such as metal meshes over the sensitive zone, blasting with explosives of hazardous zones, or the removal of materials from such, anchoring of cliffs with rock bolts, and scaling. A good practice is setting up warning signs near hazardous zones (L.M. Highland, 2008).
Topple landslides usually occur in volcanic terrain or at banks of water bodies that are steep. In this form of landslide, a mass of soil or rock rotates outwards from a slope such that the mass does not fall directly downward, where the axis is situated at less than the center of gravity for that mass. Triggered by water flowing through cracks in the mass, topple landslides can also be caused by gravitational forces acting through objects above the mass, undercutting, vibration, differential weathering, erosion and human excavations. Mitigation efforts should focus on checking the stability for such masses, and look for contributory factors such as seepage and drainage networks. Mechanical methods of securing these masses such as rock bolts and metal meshes could prove useful.
Slide landslides are downward movement of soil and rock on a slope occurring due to rupture over sometimes thin sheets with characteristically intense shear strain. This form of landslide gathers material as it ruptures from the point of origin. Slide landslides are usually caused due to the action of water through intense rainfall or snowfall, excess groundwater, etc at the base of the slopes. Another trigger for this form of landslide can be earthquakes. Mitigating this form of landslide is extremely difficult, as it is extremely difficult to predict exactly where such a rupture could take place. While measures such as construction of retaining walls can be taken in areas with an expectation of risk, analyzing large swathes of area for detecting risks and predicting the exact point of rupture is a very difficult task.
Translational landslides are when the mass of soil or rocks movesoutwards or downwards a planar surface with the distinction from slide landslides in that there is no rotational motion in the mass. Provided that there are no barriers and the plane is sufficiently inclined, the mass in this form of landslides can travel a considerable distance. The trigger mechanisms are similar to slide landslides as due to action of water or vibrations by earthquakes. Mitigation efforts are similarly difficult as for slide landslides, although managing drainage in problem areas could help mitigation efforts to a great extent.
Spread landslides occur due to the subsidence of cohesive soil or rock masses into softer, less cohesive or vacant areas and masses. Its triggers include liquefaction, gravitational forces due to exerted weight above, changes in the underlying layer that cause them to subside or dissipate, and liquefaction of underlying layer. Its mitigation efforts are focused on mapping liquefaction in soil and in underground levels below the surface soil.
Flow landslides are the flowing motion of masses of soil and rock in manner similar to the flow of liquids frequently due to the presence of high amounts of liquids in the mass. These landslides are triggered by intense surface water flows and can also be by-products of previous landslides. These landslides, due to their sudden nature, are extremely unpredictable, except in places of likely or frequent occurrence, where canals and basins can be built to mitigate the event of a flow landslide. Volcanic lava flows can also be categorized as a form of flow landslide.
Indian examples of devastating landslides
The flood mudslides that occurred in Uttarakhand in India in 2013 is listed as the 5th highest number of casualties from landslide events in the world, with 5,700 deaths. The chief cause for the extent of the damage, scientists and environmentalists point out, was the unbridled human intervention in the region.
Hridayesh Joshi in his book ‘Rage of the River: The Untold Story of the Kedarnath Disaster’ says that human intervention in the region in the form of dams, commercial logging and open-cast mining created the pre-conditions that exacerbated the disaster (R. Guha, 2016). Ramachandra Guha in The Hindu (2013) also talks of how a report by the prominent ecologist Madhav Gadgil on an erosion strategy for Uttarakhand was requested and subsequently ignored by the then Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. Guha talks about a constant ignorance by the parties concerned of warnings by experts regarding development and environment in Uttarakhand.
The flash floods and landslides in Ladakh in 2010 is another landslide event in India of note. A cloudburst during the Monsoons on August 6, 2010 triggered flooding and landslides in the Himalayan region of Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir that claimed at least 257 lives (NDMA, undated) and destroyed property in Leh town and several villages.
According to estimates by Reuters more than 25,000 people were affected in what due to the inaccessibility of Ladakh during this period quickly turned into a humanitarian tragedy. Thomas Chandy of Save the Children, India (CEO) talking of rescue operations is reported to have told the press that “More than 5,000 children have been affected by this humanitarian tragedy in Leh alone. We still do not know the fate of hundreds in surrounding villages as they remain inaccessible.” (Reuters, 2011). The true tragedy in simultaneous landslide events, especially after heavy showers, is often the difficulty faced by aid workers in carrying out relief work, in accessibility to affected areas and the delays in reaching troubled areas.
Technologies for landslide mitigation
There are however, a wide range of technologies available for landslide mitigation. These include equipments for emergency response, geological reconnaissance of landslide-prone areas, local monitoring services, site investigation with borings and test pits, slope stability analyses, seismic analysis of slopes, technical assistance in construction of buildings, roads, pipes, etc, design assistance for drainage systems, and erosion modelling (Landslide Technology, 2017).
India’s National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) has a focus on site-specific landslide mitigation that involves making geological investigations on selected sites (NDMA, 2015). Its approach is based on co-operation with various government agencies such as the Geological Survey of India to designate certain areas as landslide-prone areas.
India has not as yet witnessed a comprehensive hands-on technological approach to landslide mitigation. However, technology for this is available, and the problem is a matter of managing costs with the possibility of a high failure rate. On the other side however, a few timely evacuations might open a new vista for the NDMA in terms of disaster preparedness.
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The United Nations has shaped so much of global co-operation and regulation that we wouldn’t recognise our world today without the UN’s pervasive role in it. So many small details of our lives – such as postage and copyright laws – are subject to international co-operation nurtured by the UN.
In its 75th year, however, the UN is in a difficult moment as the world faces climate crisis, a global pandemic, great power competition, trade wars, economic depression and a wider breakdown in international co-operation.
Still, the UN has faced tough times before – over many decades during the Cold War, the Security Council was crippled by deep tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. The UN is not as sidelined or divided today as it was then. However, as the relationship between China and the US sours, the achievements of global co-operation are being eroded.
The way in which people speak about the UN often implies a level of coherence and bureaucratic independence that the UN rarely possesses. A failure of the UN is normally better understood as a failure of international co-operation.
We see this recently in the UN’s inability to deal with crises from the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, to civil conflict in Syria, and the failure of the Security Council to adopt a COVID-19 resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones and a co-operative international response to the pandemic.
The UN administration is not primarily to blame for these failures; rather, the problem is the great powers – in the case of COVID-19, China and the US – refusing to co-operate.
Where states fail to agree, the UN is powerless to act.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the official formation of the UN, when 50 founding nations signed the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, we look at some of its key triumphs and resounding failures.
Five successes
1. Peacekeeping
The United Nations was created with the goal of being a collective security organisation. The UN Charter establishes that the use of force is only lawful either in self-defence or if authorised by the UN Security Council. The Security Council’s five permanent members, being China, US, UK, Russia and France, can veto any such resolution.
The UN’s consistent role in seeking to manage conflict is one of its greatest successes.
A key component of this role is peacekeeping. The UN under its second secretary-general, the Swedish statesman Dag Hammarskjöld – who was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace prize after he died in a suspicious plane crash – created the concept of peacekeeping. Hammarskjöld was responding to the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US opposed the invasion of Egypt by its allies Israel, France and the UK.
UN peacekeeping missions involve the use of impartial and armed UN forces, drawn from member states, to stabilise fragile situations. “The essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war,” said then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, when the forces won the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize following missions in conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Central America and Europe.
However, peacekeeping also counts among the UN’s major failures.
2. Law of the Sea
Negotiated between 1973 and 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) set up the current international law of the seas. It defines states’ rights and creates concepts such as exclusive economic zones, as well as procedures for the settling of disputes, new arrangements for governing deep sea bed mining, and importantly, new provisions for the protection of marine resources and ocean conservation.
Mostly, countries have abided by the convention. There are various disputes that China has over the East and South China Seas which present a conflict between power and law, in that although UNCLOS creates mechanisms for resolving disputes, a powerful state isn’t necessarily going to submit to those mechanisms.
Secondly, on the conservation front, although UNCLOS is a huge step forward, it has failed to adequately protect oceans that are outside any state’s control. Ocean ecosystems have been dramatically transformed through overfishing. This is an ecological catastrophe that UNCLOS has slowed, but failed to address comprehensively.
3. Decolonisation
The idea of racial equality and of a people’s right to self-determination was discussed in the wake of World War I and rejected. After World War II, however, those principles were endorsed within the UN system, and the Trusteeship Council, which monitored the process of decolonisation, was one of the initial bodies of the UN.
Although many national independence movements only won liberation through bloody conflicts, the UN has overseen a process of decolonisation that has transformed international politics. In 1945, around one third of the world’s population lived under colonial rule. Today, there are less than 2 million people living in colonies.
When it comes to the world’s First Nations, however, the UN generally has done little to address their concerns, aside from the non-binding UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007.
4. Human rights
The Human Rights Declaration of 1948 for the first time set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, recognising that the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.
Since 1948, 10 human rights treaties have been adopted – including conventions on the rights of children and migrant workers, and against torture and discrimination based on gender and race – each monitored by its own committee of independent experts.
The language of human rights has created a new framework for thinking about the relationship between the individual, the state and the international system. Although some people would prefer that political movements focus on ‘liberation’ rather than ‘rights’, the idea of human rights has made the individual person a focus of national and international attention.
5. Free trade
Depending on your politics, you might view the World Trade Organisation as a huge success, or a huge failure.
The WTO creates a near-binding system of international trade law with a clear and efficient dispute resolution process.
The majority Australian consensus is that the WTO is a success because it has been good for Australian famers especially, through its winding back of subsidies and tariffs.
However, the WTO enabled an era of globalisation which is now politically controversial.
Recently, the US has sought to disrupt the system. In addition to the trade war with China, the Trump Administration has also refused to appoint tribunal members to the WTO’s Appellate Body, so it has crippled the dispute resolution process. Of course, the Trump Administration is not the first to take issue with China’s trade strategies, which include subsidises for ‘State Owned Enterprises’ and demands that foreign firms transfer intellectual property in exchange for market access.
The existence of the UN has created a forum where nations can discuss new problems, and climate change is one of them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to assess climate science and provide policymakers with assessments and options. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created a permanent forum for negotiations.
However, despite an international scientific body in the IPCC, and 165 signatory nations to the climate treaty, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase.
Under the Paris Agreement, even if every country meets its greenhouse gas emission targets we are still on track for ‘dangerous warming’. Yet, no major country is even on track to meet its targets; while emissions will probably decline this year as a result of COVID-19, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will still increase.
This illustrates a core conundrum of the UN in that it opens the possibility of global cooperation, but is unable to constrain states from pursuing their narrowly conceived self-interests. Deep co-operation remains challenging.
Five failures of the UN
1. Peacekeeping
During the Bosnian War, Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed in the town of Srebrenica, declared a ‘safe area’ by the UN in 1993, failed in 1995 to stop the massacre of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. This is one of the most widely discussed examples of the failures of international peacekeeping operations.
On the massacre’s 10th anniversary, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote that the UN had “made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality”, contributing to a mass murder that would “haunt our history forever”.
If you look at some of the other infamous failures of peacekeeping missions – in places such as Rwanda, Somalia and Angola – it is the limited powers given to peacekeeping operations that have resulted in those failures.
2. The invasion of Iraq
The invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, which was unlawful and without Security Council authorisation, reflects the fact that the UN is has very limited capacity to constrain the actions of great powers.
The Security Council designers created the veto power so that any of the five permanent members could reject a Council resolution, so in that way it is programmed to fail when a great power really wants to do something that the international community generally condemns.
In the case of the Iraq invasion, the US didn’t veto a resolution, but rather sought authorisation that it did not get. The UN, if you go by the idea of collective security, should have responded by defending Iraq against this unlawful use of force.
The invasion proved a humanitarian disaster with the loss of more than 400,000 lives, and many believe that it led to the emergence of the terrorist Islamic State.
3. Refugee crises
The UN brokered the 1951 Refugee Convention to address the plight of people displaced in Europe due to World War II; years later, the 1967 Protocol removed time and geographical restrictions so that the Convention can now apply universally (although many countries in Asia have refused to sign it, owing in part to its Eurocentric origins).
Despite these treaties, and the work of the UN High Commission for Refugees, there is somewhere between 30 and 40 million refugees, many of them, such as many Palestinians, living for decades outside their homelands. This is in addition to more than 40 million people displaced within their own countries.
While for a long time refugee numbers were reducing, in recent years, particularly driven by the Syrian conflict, there have been increases in the number of people being displaced.
During the COVID-19 crisis, boatloads of Rohingya refugees were turned away by port after port. This tragedy has echoes of pre-World War II when ships of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were refused entry by multiple countries.
And as a catastrophe of a different kind looms, there is no international framework in place for responding to people who will be displaced by rising seas and other effects of climate change.
4. Conflicts without end
Across the world, there is a shopping list of unresolved civil conflicts and disputed territories.
Palestine and Kashmir are two of the longest-running failures of the UN to resolve disputed lands. More recent, ongoing conflicts include the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
The common denominator of unresolved conflicts is either division among the great powers, or a lack of international interest due to the geopolitical stakes not being sufficiently high. For instance, the inaction during the Rwandan civil war in the 1990s was not due to a division among great powers, but rather a lack of political will to engage.
In Syria, by contrast, Russia and the US have opposing interests and back opposing sides: Russia backs the government of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US does not.
5. Acting like it’s 1945
The UN is increasingly out of step with the reality of geopolitics today.
The permanent members of the Security Council reflect the division of power internationally at the end of World War II. The continuing exclusion of Germany, Japan, and rising powers such as India and Indonesia, reflects the failure to reflect the changing balance of power.
Also, bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, which are part of the UN system, continue to be dominated by the West. In response, China has created potential rival institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Western domination of UN institutions undermines their credibility. However, a more fundamental problem is that institutions designed in 1945 are a poor fit with the systemic global challenges – of which climate change is foremost – that we face today.