SATREPS Project for Sri Lanka with Regard to “Development of Early Warning Technology of Rain-Induced Rapid and Long-Travelling Landslides”

Influenced by the recent global climate change, extreme rainfall events have become more frequent worldwide and resultant hydro-meteorological hazards are creating more deaths and devastations. One of the most remarkable disasters of rain-induced rapid long-travelling landslides (RRLL) in Sri Lanka took place at Aranayake, 70 km east of Colombo in 2016 (JICA Survey Team 2016) (JICA Survey Team in Survey results of Aranayake Disaster, 2016). The fluidized landslide mass ran over an about 2 km distance claiming the lives of 125 people. This tragic event has thus highlighted the importance of sophisticated early warning and disaster management mechanism even more than ever, because the presence of these hidden unstable soil masses as well as their run-out distances are very difficult to predict, and once they start sliding, it is almost impossible to stop them. Both the National Building Research Organisation, Sri Lanka (NBRO) and the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) have jointly compiled a research proposal within the framework of SATREPS, standing for “Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development,” a Japanese government program that promotes international joint researches, and it passed the final round of selection on May 16, 2019. Thus, the new 5-years SATREPS project for Sri Lanka with regard to “Development of early warning technology of Rain-induced Rapid and Long-travelling Landslides (Project RRLL)”, starts in 2020. This article reports on the outline of the project including its goals, plans of plots for developing individual technologies for the early warning system, etc.