13. Climate Change-Induced Geotechnical Hazards in Asia: Impacts, Assessments, and Responses

Climate change occurring concomitantly with global warming is expected to affect human life in many respects. One important effect is that climate change is expected to present unanticipated hazards related to natural disasters and changing environments, sometimes called “extreme events.” The scale, intensity, and frequency of natural disasters have been increasing continuously. The increasing frequency and scale of natural disasters are apparently concentrated in Asia-Pacific regions. Examples of disasters of this category include torrential rainfall induced shallow and deep slope failure, flooding, riverbank erosion, and destruction of roads and railways as well as damage to coastal structures triggered by severe typhoons and intensifying inundation. As an activity to alleviate unfortunate situations for which achievements have scarcely been described in earlier Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change reports, ATC 1 was proposed to use the skills of geotechnical engineers dealing with the protection and mitigation of geo-disasters and geo-environmental impacts in their professional work and research. Confronting these disasters with resiliency and concrete measures is a responsibility of our geotechnical engineering society, particularly of the Asian branch of ISSMGE. This paper describes new findings and knowledge learned through ATC 1 Committee activities and achievements.