Geotechnical News • September 2017
39
GEOHAZARDS
Introduction by Richard Guthrie, Editor
Summer 2017
Mosquitoes, mud, hail storms and
landslides! I hope your field season
was as exciting as mine and you’re
safely back in the office compiling
data and producing analysis.
If you are working on dams, plan-
ning for flood mitigation, or frankly,
working any hazard that is affected
by rainstorms, then you are frequently
asked how to incorporate climate
change into your design, models or
analyses. This quarter I’m pleased to
present to you the fantastic work of
Slobodan Simonovic and the team at
Western University. Together with the
Canadian Water Network, they devel-
oped an online tool that downscales
user-selected global climate model
scenarios and provides Intensity-Dura-
tion-Frequency curves as an output.
It’s free.
It’s Canadian.
It’s really, really useful.
Have a look (the link is in the paper)
and think about how it might apply to
your work.
Announcing
7th Canadian Geohazards
Conference – Geohazards 7:
Engineering Resiliency In A
Changing Climate
The Canadian Geotechnical Society
(CGS) is pleased to announce the 7th
Canadian Geohazards Conference –
Geohazards 7 – to be held June 3-6,
2018 at the Coast Canmore Hotel
& Conference Centre in Canmore,
Alberta. The CGS’s Geohazards
conferences are the premiere forums
in Canada for the sharing and dis-
semination of scientific and engineer-
ing knowledge related to geohazard
assessment and risk management.
Canmore is ideally situated for host-
ing Geohazards 7. It is located within
easy travel distance from the Calgary
International Airport, and is less than
a 30-minute drive from Banff National
Park. Heavy rainfall in June 2013
resulted in the worst floods in Alber-
ta’s history. Landslides, debris floods
and debris flows cut off highway and
rail access to Banff and Canmore, and
many homes constructed on allu-
vial fans were destroyed. Municipal
governments, the Province and the
engineering and geoscience commu-
nity have since carried out aggressive
programs to quantify geohazard risk,
increase public awareness of hazards,
and are constructing mitigation mea-
sures to reduce future risk. Canmore is
a terrific venue to showcase the results
of some of these initiatives, which will
feature in the conference program and
fieldtrip.
This conference will be of interest to
engineering and geoscience students
and consultants, industry, and gov-
ernment agency representatives who
are involved in planning, approval,
construction and operation of infra-
structure and residential develop-
ment in areas prone to geohazards.
The conference will touch on the full
gamut of hazards and risks associated
with floods, debris flows, landslides,
snow avalanche, earthquakes, volcanic
eruptions, degrading permafrost and
more. Arming participants with greater
awareness of methods for quantifying
geohazard magnitude and frequency
for risk assessment and mitigation
design, quantifying uncertainty in a
changing climate, and communicat-
ing with the public about geohazard
issues, are key objectives of the
conference.
Closing Notes
Thank you for your letters! If you
have a paper or project related to
Geohazards that you think would be
interesting to GN readers, please send
me note at
Until December,
Rick
