Geoenvironmental Disasters(2022) 9:24
Xiong et al. Geoenvironmental Disasters
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40677-022-00225-2

Open Access

EDITORIAL

Report on the 20th International Symposium
on Geo‑disaster Reduction, 16–19 August 2022,Kanazawa, JapanXi Xiong1, Bo Zhang2, Masaho Yoshida3* and Masakatsu Miyajima4

Abstract
The joint event of 20th International Symposium on Geo-disaster Reduction (20th ISGdR) was held onsite and online
during 16–19 August 2022 in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. This symposium focused on the theme of“the reduction of the disasters triggered by geological and geophysical factors on the earth and beyond”, providing
a platform for academics, researchers and practitioners from different countries to discuss the research progress andexchange ideas on the reduction of disasters. The symposium consisted of keynote lecture, invited lectures and otherpresentations in parallel session. A technical trip to Hakusan Tedorigawa Geopark was conducted on August 19.
Introduction
From August 16 to 19, 2022, the 20th ISGdR was held in
Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. This hybrid
conference was organized by the International Consortium on Geo-disaster Reduction (ICGdR), Kanazawa
University, National Institute of Technology, Fukui College, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Fukui Universityof Technology, and Tobishima Corporation.
The executive committee of this event was led by threeco-chairs, Prof. Emer. Masakatsu Miyajima (Honorary chair/ICGdR Director-General, Kanazawa University, Japan), Prof. Masaho Yoshida (Chair/ICGdR Vice
Presidents, National Institute of Technology, Fukui College, Japan), and A. Prof Toshikazu Ikemoto (Vice chair/Kanazawa University, Japan).
The joint event focused on the theme of “the reductionof the disasters triggered by geological and geophysical factors on the earth and beyond”. Subthemes underthe overall theme include: (1) Geo-disasters caused byearthquake; (2) Geo-disasters and climate change; (3)*Correspondence: masaho@fukui-nct.ac.jp
3

Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Fukui
College, Sabae, Fukui 916‑8507, Japan
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article

Geo-disasters related to volcanism; (4) Geo-disasters
caused by human activities; (5) Landslides; (6) Tsunami;(7) Social resilience to disasters; (8) New technologies forgeo-disaster reduction, and other related topics.
There were two parts of this event, including the symposium at The Kanazawa Chamber of Commerce andIndustry and technical tour to Hakusan Tedorigawa
Geopark. A total of 107 academics, researchers and practitioners from different countries participated in thisevent (Fig. 1). Among them there were 29 on-line participants and 78 on-site participants. One keynote lecture, 4
invited lectures and 46 presentations (proceeded in twoparallel conference rooms) were reported in the symposium, arousing heated discussion among the participants
both online and onsite.

Symposium
Opening ceremony

The opening ceremony was presided over by A. Prof.
Toshiyuki Takahara from Kanazawa Institute of Technology. As the Chair of 20th ISGdR, Prof. Masaho
Yoshida gave an opening speech, warmly welcomed
all the guests attended this conference, and ended hisspeech with the best wish for the success of this symposium (Fig. 2a). Then, Prof. Fawu Wang from Tongji© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which
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Xiong et al. Geoenvironmental Disasters(2022) 9:24

Page 2 of 6Fig. 1 Group photo of participants of the 20th ISGdR: (a) Onsite; (b) Online

University, China, the president of ICGdR, introduced
the activity report of ICGdR. He expressed sincere
appreciation to the efforts of the organizing committee
and all the staff, and introduced the major achievementsof ICGdR in 2021–2022, including the structures, activities, projects, trainings, workshops and so on (Fig. 2b).
In the next segment, Prof. Tonglu Li from Chang’anUniversity, China, the Secretary-General of ICGdR,introduced the new ICGdR members (Fig. 2c). A total of20 researchers from different institutions joined ICGdR,adding new vitality to ICGdR for more cooperation andresearch.

For the final part of opening ceremony, Prof Emer.
Masakatsu Miyajima announced the recipients of fiveawards of ICGdR, the detail information is showed inTable 1. Dr. Azemeraw Wubalem won the Geoenvironmental Disasters 2021 Best Paper Award for hisexcellent work in the paper “Landslide susceptibility
mapping using statistical methods in Uatzau catchment
area, northwestern Ethiopia” (Fig. 3), worth 1000 Euro.
Keynote lecture

The Keynote Lecture of 20th ISGdR was chaired by
Prof. Masaho Yoshida. Prof. Emer. Masakatsu Miyajima

Xiong et al. Geoenvironmental Disasters(2022) 9:24

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Fig. 3 2021 Best Paper Award of the ICGdR official journal:
Geoenvironmental disasters

Fig. 2 Opening ceremony: a Opening speech by Prof. Masaho
Yoshida gave an opening speech; b Activity Report of ICGdR byProf. Fawu Wang; c Introduction of the new ICGdR members by Prof.
Tonglu Li

Fig. 4 Keynote Lecture presented by Prof. Emer. Masakatsu Miyajima

Table 1 Winners of five ICGdR awardsAwardsAwards-Winner

Affiliation

ICGdR Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award

Dr. Xingsen GUO

Dalian University of Technology, Chin a

ICGdR Outstanding Young Scientist Award

Dr. Xi XU

Tongji University, China

Dr. Yifei CUI

Tsinghua University, China

Prof. Xiaolei LIU

Ocean University, China

Dr. Wuwei MAO

Tongji University, China

Prof. Kun SONG

China Three Gorges University, China

ICGdR Outstanding Activity Award

Prof. Fenggui LIU

Qinghai National University, China

Prof. Shengwei QI

Chinese Academy of Science, China

ICGdR Technology Invention Award

Prof. Bin HE

Guangdong Academy of Science, ChinaProf. Yonggang JIA

Ocean University of China, China

ICGdR Science Achievement Award

Prof. Emer. Masakatsu MIYAJIMA

Kanazawa University, Japan

Xiong et al. Geoenvironmental Disasters(2022) 9:24

Page 4 of 6Fig. 5 Invited Lectures presented by a Prof. Yusuke Ono, b Dr. Ryoichi Furuta, c Prof. Maochao He, d Prof. Tetsuo Tobita

Table 2 List of Keynote Lecture and Invited lectures
TypeTitle

Presenter

Affiliation

Keynote Lecture

Resilience of water pipelines and facilities against geo-hazards induced byearthquakes and heavy rains

Prof. Emer. Masakatsu Miyajima

Kanazawa University

Invited Lecture

Numerical simulation of earthquake-induced slope failures using the SPH
methodProf. Yusuke Ono

Tottori University

Invited Lecture

Monitoring disasters and surveying damages using remote sensing technologies

Dr. Ryoichi Furuta

Remote Sensing
Technology Centerof Japan

Invited Lecture

Cross-fault measurement for earthquake prediction

Prof. Manchao He

China University ofMining and Technology—Beijing

Invited Lecture

LEAP: International collaborative research project for centrifuge model testing and numerical analysis on dynamic behavior of saturated sloping sanddeposit

Prof. Tetsuo Tobita

Kansai University

presented the Keynote Lecture named “Resilience ofwater pipelines and facilities against geo-hazards inducedby earthquakes and heavy rains” (Fig. 4).
Invited lectures

The 20th ISGdR arranged 4 Invited Lectures, covering the areas of numerical simulation, disaster monitoring, earthquake measurement and model testing(Fig. 5). The details of the Invited Lectures, including
topics, presenters and their affiliations can be found inTable 2.
Fig. 6 Presentation of Parallel Sessions

Xiong et al. Geoenvironmental Disasters(2022) 9:24

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Parallel sessions

Closing ceremony

From August 17 to 18, 46 presentations were reported in
the Parallel Sessions focusing on different topics under
the overall theme of this symposium. These sessions were
held simultaneously in two conference rooms, and provided a platform for young researchers to interact anddiscuss their research in depth (Fig. 6). They also got agreat opportunity to summarize and share their ideas andresearch progress, and received lots of encouragement andadvice in the discussion that followed the presentations.

The closing ceremony was held on the afternoon ofAugust 18, and presided over by A. Prof. Toshiyuki Takahara. A. Prof. Wuwei Mao (Tongji University, China) gave
a general overview of the next symposium, which will beheld at Tongji University, Shanghai, China in the summerof 2023. The theme of 21st ISGdR is “A new era for safeand resilient coastal and marine systems”.
Then, Prof. Masaho Yoshida read out the list of winners for the excellent presentation, presented them withawards and expressed great encouragement (Fig. 7).
At the end of closing ceremony, Prof. Emer. Masakatsu
Miyajima gave a closing speech and expressed sincere
appreciation to the organizers and supporters for thework they did for this symposium.

Fig. 7 Prof. Masaho Yoshida presented the awards to the winners

Technical tour
A technical trip to Hakusan Tedorigawa Geopark wasconducted on August 19. The entirety of Hakusan City,
Ishikawa Prefecture, is designated as the Hakusan Tedorigawa Geopark. In the geopark, a number of geosites
have been set up as "highlight points (geo points)" in thethree areas "mountain and snow" "river and canyon" "seaand fan".

Fig. 8 Technical trip at Hakusan Tedorigawa Geopark: a Hyakumangan Rock; b Ichinose Visitor Center; c Watagaya waterfall on Tedori Canyon; dShishiku Highland

Xiong et al. Geoenvironmental Disasters(2022) 9:24

The participants firstly visited Hyakumangan Rock(Fig. 8a), which is a big rock transported by enormous
flood on 1934. Then in Ichinose Visitor Center, theylearned the formation of the land that makes up thegeopark (Fig. 8b) as the guides explained. In the afternoon, they visited Watagaya waterfall on Tedori Canyonand Shishiku Highland (Fig. 8c, d). In this technical trip,
the participants not only learned the causes of geological disasters, but also learned how to release the disasters
and live in harmony with them.
Acknowledgements
Financial support from the Maeda Engineering Foundation, Hokuriku Road
Research Association (Hokuriku Doro Kenkyukai), is greatly appreciated.
Author contributions
XX and BZ wrote the manuscript, MY and MM refined it. All authors read andapproved the final manuscript.
Funding
Not applicable.
Availability of data and materials
Not applicable.

Declarations
Competing interests
Not applicable.
Author details
1
Faculty of Geoscience and Civil Engineering, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa,Ishikawa 920‑1192, Japan. 2 Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Collegeof Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China. 3 Departmentof Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Fukui College, Sabae,
Fukui 916‑8507, Japan. 4 Lifeline Disaster Mitigation Lab, Kanazawa, Ishikawa
920‑0965, Japan.

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