Geo-Engineers without Borders

Introduction

The ISSMGE "Geo-engineers Without Borders" Committee (GeoWB) is a concept introduced by President Marc Ballouz. Pierre Delage has been invited to oversee this Committee, with Daniela Pollak, Board member, actively participating.

This Committee proposes to send volunteer Geo-engineers from the ISSMGE network (around 90 countries and 37 Technical Committees) over the world to areas which have been affected by a Geo-disaster such as earthquakes, landslides, floods, failure of dykes, dam and tailing dams, collapse of geotechnical structures to mention a few.

Once this is done, the Geo-engineers will prepare a comprehensive report (3 pages or more) for national and international authorities (travel expenses paid by the ISSMGE).

This proposal will be made after analysing the local context and expertise in the country, utilizing where possible the ISSMGE network (Member Societies, members of Technical Committees). The report would include the following:

- Description and causes of the disaster

- Damages arising from the geo-disaster

- Diagnosis of failures

- Potential remedial measures.

Particular attention will be given to risk analysis and possible preventive measures for the future.

The GeoWB, in collaboration with ISSMGE, aims to offer their global competence to countries that have experienced a natural disaster. This is currently relevant especially in light of an increase in natural disasters due to global climatic change. In this regard, the GeoWB made a Voluntary Commitment within the framework of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

Organisation

The Committee will select geo-engineers among ISSMGE who would be ready to volunteer and provide intervention. Geo-engineers should preferably be located in close proximity to the impacted area, and possess - or have the support of persons having - adequate knowledge of local context, language and culture.

Additionally, the Committee seeks to ensure that experts would be accepted by local colleagues and authorities, thus avoiding any diplomatic or political issue. Experts will be chosen within the ISSMGE membership, through direct contacts with GeoWB members, through TCs (with the Technical Oversight Committee) or through Member Societies (with support from regional Vice-Presidents).

In nations with no ISSMGE Member Society, alternative procedures would need to be followed. In this regard, contacts could be made via the GeoWorld network which has members in most countries. Local contacts would be required for obvious reasons to cover logistical aspects such as speaking local language, interacting and connecting with local authorities, managing travel and accommodation issues, arranging local transportation.

GeoWB will undoubtedly devote special attention to the significant logistical work of organizing safe missions in remote areas, in conjunction with other organizations that have a great deal of experience of providing disaster interventions.

Membership

The composition of GeoWB is as follows:

Prof. Pierre Delage, Chair (France - Europe)

Eng. Daniela Pollak, Board member (Chile - South America)

Dr. Léo Alibert (Lebanon - Asia)

Prof. Tugce Baser (US - North America)

Prof. Qun Chen (China - Asia)

Eng. Ahmed Chraibi (Morocco - Africa)

Dr. Lawrence de Leeuw (UK - Europe)

Prof. George Gazetas (Greece - Europe)

Prof. Antonio Gens (Spain - Europe)

Prof. Hemanta Hazarika (Japan - Asia)

Eng. Will Ibim (Nigeria - Africa)

Dr. Jan Kupec (New Zealand - Australasia)

Prof. Enlong Liu (China - Asia)

Prof. Fernando Marinho (Brasil - South America)

Prof. Luciano Picarelli (Italia - Europe)

Prof. Neelima Satyam (India, Asia)

Dr. Ezra Setiasabda (US - North America)

Prof. Shu Yu (China - Asia)

Reports and missions

The GeoWB activities are regularly described in the ISSMGE Bulletin. Various reports prepared by GeoWB members can be found in the thumbnail "Reports on geodisasters".

Missions made by GeoWB members include the Derna dams failures in Lybia, made by A. Chraibi in 2023 for the International Committee On Large Dams (ICOLD) with the support of UNDRR (see the Wikipedia description here), the Enga landslide in Papua New Guinea made by J. Kupec with the support of New Zealand and Australia armies, the disasters resulting from heavy rains in Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul) by F. Marinho and a support provided on the prevention of urban landslides  to the technical services of the City of La Paz (Bolivia) by F. Marinho and Prof. B. Caicedo from Colombia.

The main lessons learned from these missions is the need of reliable and motivated local contacts, and, in the case of remote and unsafe countries, the need of ensuring the safety of geo-engineers through effective logistical supports.

Contact: [email protected]