Wenchuan County

Water-Related Natural Disasters in Mountainous Area

Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk

This book is a part of ICL new book series “ICL Contribution to Landslide Disaster Risk Reduction” founded in 2019. Peer-reviewed papers submitted to the Fifth World Landslide Forum were published in six volumes of this book series. This book contains the followings: Part I with topics is mainly about landslides and earthquakes; landslide dams and outburst floods; catastrophic large-scale landslides in mountainous regions. Part II with topics is mainly about impact of climate change; loess landslides; mapping, monitoring and modeling of landslides; stabilization and mitigation; application of new technology in landslide studies. Prof. Vít Vilímek is the vice-president of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) and a member of the evaluation committee, Editor-in-Chief of the university journal AUC Geographica and Associate Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Geoenvironmental Disasters. He is a Professor of Physical Geography at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. Prof. Fawu Wang is the President of the International Consortium on Geo-disaster Reduction (ICGdR) and the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Geoenvironmental Disasters. He is a Professor at the School of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, China. Dr. Alexander Strom is a chief expert at the Geodynamics Research Center LLC, Moscow, Russia. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Chang’an University, Xi’an, China, Visiting Professor at SKLGP, Chengdu, China, and an alternative representative of the JSC “Hydroproject Institute” in ICL. Prof. Kyoji Sassa is the Founding President and the Secretary-General of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). He has been the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal Landslides since its foundation in 2004. Prof. Peter Bobrowsky is the President of the International Consortium on Landslides. He is a Senior Scientist of Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa, Canada. Prof. Kaoru Takara is the Executive Director of the International Consortium on Landslides. He is a Professor and Dean of Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies (GSAIS) in Human Survivability (Shishu-Kan), Kyoto University.

Biological Invasions Belowground: Earthworms as Invasive Species

The most conspicuous biological invasions in terrestrial ecosystems have been by exotic plants, insects and vertebrates. Less conspicuous but possibly of equal importance are invasions by soil invertebrates, which are occurring literally beneath our feet. Familiar examples include the South American fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) which has invaded North America and Australia, and the New Zealand flatworm (Arthurdendyus triangulatus) which has become wide-spread in the United Kingdom; both have caused considerable ecological and economic damage. There is now evidence that exotic earthworm invasions are increasing world-wide and may be having significant impacts on soil processes and plant communities in some regions. Much remains to be learned about these ‘cryptic’ biological invasions. The papers in this book are based on efforts by an international group of soil ecologists to assess the biological and ecological mechanisms of earthworm invasions, their geographic extent and impacts on terrestrial ecosystems, and possible means by which earthworm invasions might be mitigated.