Building resilience to avalanches and other climate-driven geohazards through international collaboration in education: experience from the GEOMME partnership

Abstract

The GEOMME international partnership for ‘Climate-driven GEOhazards Mitigation, Management, and Education’ fosters collaboration in research and education on climate-driven geohazards across South Korea, Japan, and Norway. The initiative focuses on enhancing societal resilience against gravitational mass flows through excellence in education and research, aiming to improve the adaptive capacities of partner nations via research-based education and knowledge exchange. The partnership is focusing on four emerging scientific themes: (1) understanding geohazards in a changing climate, (2) modeling hazard processes at various spatial scales, (3) monitoring and early warning, and (4) sustainable hazard and risk mitigation. Each of these themes is addressed by an educational package including an introductory online module and an in-depth, in-person course. we targeting graduate students, practitioners, and researchers. Snow avalanches, particularly challenging in Norway and Japan, are a central focus, with recent efforts emphasizing climate change considerations in hazard assessments and regional avalanche modeling. The partnership’s interdisciplinary approach, integrating expertise from other hazards like landslides, enhances both avalanche understanding and broader geohazard mitigation strategies.