On advice of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Union Government constituted a high- level Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) FOR LANDSLIDE MITIGATION AND MANAGEMENT IN INDIA vide the Gazette of India Notification dated 25 September 2012. The TAC is to act as an “Apex Body” of the Government of India and is to serve as “Think-tank” to nurse landslide sector with cutting edge science and technology, fresh ideas and stimulus. Secretary, MoM is the Chairman and several Secretaries of other crucial Ministries of Central and State Governments are made Members of the TAC. The Deputy Director General and Head, M-IV is the Member Secretary of TAC. The committee would look into all matters pertaining to landslide mitigation and management including a) recommending suitable techniques and scale for landslide hazard mapping, b) monitoring of landslides, c) research and development, d) human resource planning and e) capacity development. The 1st meeting of the TAC on “Landslide Mitigation & Management in India” under the chairmanship of the Secretary, MoM was held on 24th May 2013 at Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi. Being the apex technical body of the Government of India on landslides, TAC, in its 1st meeting stressed on focused planning in landslide mitigation and management, synergy, cooperation, and coordination amongst all the stakeholders and Vision-Mission matrix mode of functioning. As the outcome of the meeting, on advice of NDMA, the GSI established a Cell for Geohazards Research & Management in Kolkata to coordinate both of its normal and research-oriented landslide projects in the country. The Cell is also tasked to prepare a road map for constituting a full-fledged Institute for this purpose in future. The Secretary (Mines) and the Chairman, TAC also remarked that there is a need for coordination between all the 55 ministries in the union government in both inter and intra ministerial mode for tackling and managing hazards and disaster of the country.
On recommendation from TAC, GSI constituted a five member internal Screening Committee for screening landslide projects being funded by Government of India. The aim is to create a repository of all landslide studies being carried out in India and make it available for public viewing on GSI portal. The first meeting of the Screening Committee was held in the chamber of Addl. Director General & National Head: Mission IV on 22 January 2015 under the chairmanship of then Dy. D.G. & National Head: Mission IV, GSI, CHQ, Kolkata. Addl. Director General & National Head: Mission IV is the Chairman of the Screening Committee and the Members include Shri M. Raju, Addl. Director General; Dr. M. S. Bodas, Director; Dr. Saibal Ghosh, Suptdg Geologist; Dr. Pankaj Jaiswal, Suptdg Geologist and Dr. Timir Baran Ghoshal, Suptdg Geologist.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on 5th September 2014 between Defense Terrain Research Laboratory (DTRL), DRDO, Ministry of Defense, Metcalfe House, Delhi and Geological Survey of India (GSI), Ministry of Mines, 27 J.L. Nehru Road, Kolkata on "Development of Instrumentation and Monitoring of Landslides for Early Warning System in India" at GSI, Central Headquater, Kolkata. This MoU aimed to achieve the objectives to develop technology for an Early Warning System of a landslide based on instrumentation and empirical relation of rainfall and ground displacement. The project will also lead to development of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for instrument based landslide monitoring. The necessity of having R&D on landslide monitoring and development of Early Warning System was felt aftermath of Uttarakhand Disaster of June 2013. With DTRL having expertise in instrument based monitoring of landslide and GSI having expertise in geological/geotechnical modeling of landslides, this MoU forms a good platform for combining both the knowhow to develop a real time landslide warning system in India.
A Memorandum of Understanding between Geological Survey of India (GSI), Ministry of Mines, Govt. of India and Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre, Govt. of Uttarakhand on Institutional Cooperation Programme on Implementation of Landslide Early Warning System was signed on 18.02.2020 for a period of five years. The main objective of this MoU was to develop and implement a regional landslide forecast system for rainfall induced landslides in the state. Data sharing, jointly developing SOP for implementation of Landslide Warning System and Technical reports are also comes under the purview of this MoU. Under this collaboration an experimental landslide forecast bulletin is being issued during the monsoon period for Rudraprayag district since 2022 which is shared with UKSDMA and District authorities. The landslide incidence data and daily rainfall data is obtained from DDMA’s of various districts of Uttarakhand.
A Memorandum of Understanding between Indian Meteorological Department, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India and GSI on Institutional Cooperation Programme was signed on 30th December 2020 for a period of 10 years. The main objectives of this MoU were to share the rainfall data from both station-rain gauges & AWS and forecast products and landslide data and warning products, to develop a SOP for sharing and using the data in Landslide Early Warning Systems (LEWS). The convergence of scientific and technical acumen of both organisations will greatly help towards the goal of landslide disaster mitigation in the country.
A Memorandum of Understanding between Defence Geoinformation Research Establishment (DGRE), Ministry of Defence, Govt. of India and Geological Survey of India (GSI), Ministry of Mines, Govt. of India on Development of Site-Specific Landslide Forecasting Model covering Geotechnical investigation, control measures and capacity building activities was signed on 20.07.2021 for a period of three years. The broad area of collaboration includes i) Instrument based LEWS at the selected landslide site, ii) Educational module for community-based capacity building, iii) Site specific Landslide Forecasting Model, iv) Decision support system for landslide control measures, v) Development of digital portal covering thematic layers for the landslide sites, etc.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Geological Survey of India, Ministry of Mines, Govt. of India and Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA), Government of Kerala on Institutional Cooperation Programme on Implementation of Experimental Landslide Early Warning System was signed on 10.09.2021 initially for a period of five years. The broad area of collaboration was Institutional cooperation and collaboration for implementation/validation of experimental Regional Early Warning Forecast system for landslides for making it an operational model for Kerala. In addition, this MoU also intend for the development of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for flow of information for dissemination of Landslide Early Warning forecast system and provide support for the development of Disaster Management plan for landslides within Kerala.
A Memorandum of Understanding between Geological Survey of India, Ministry of Mines, Govt. of India and National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), ISRO, Department of Space, Govt. of India, was signed on 22.12.2021 for period of five years for Institutional cooperation on Landslide mitigation and management in India. The broad areas of collaboration are i) Landslide Early Warning System for landslide prone districts in India, ii) Field landslide inventory collected using mobile app, iii) Event-based landslide inventory map for major rainfall and earthquake events and iv) Slow moving landslides mapped using SAR interferometry.
GSI and Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority (SSDMA) signed a MoU on 20th April 2022 for institutional cooperation and collaboration for implementation / validation of experimental Regional Early Warning Forecast system for rainfall-induced landslides. In addition, this MoU also intend to develop a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for flow of information for dissemination of Landslide Early Warning forecast system besides providing support for development of Disaster Management Plan for landslides within the State. The MoU was signed initially for five (05) years from the date of signing and can be extended as agreed upon mutually.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on 31st March 2023 between Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC), (an autonomous body, affiliated to Department of Revenue (DM)) representing the Government of Karnataka, Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority and GSI for institutional cooperation and collaboration for implementation of an experimental forecasting system for rainfall-induced landslides. In addition, this MoU also intends to develop a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for flow of information for dissemination of Landslide forecast system besides providing support for development of Disaster Management Plan for landslides within the State. The MoU was signed initially for five (05) years from the date of signing and can be extended upon by mutual agreement.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) and GSI was signed on 21st April 2023 for Institutional Cooperation Programme on Rainfall induced landslide forecasting. The main objective of this MoU is to develop a regional rainfall/weather forecasts based experimental landslide early warning by combining information on landscape and weather dynamics and it also intended to develop a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for generating Landslide Warning Bulletins. Duration of this MoU is initially for a period of three (03) years from the date of signing and the same can be extended as agreed upon mutually. Under this MoU, it was decided to take up a pilot project immediately in Uttarakahnd, preferably in Rudraprayag district for the development and testing of long and short term rainfall-induced LEWS on experimental basis.
A framework of MoU was signed on 27th December 2023 between Himachal Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority (HPSDMA) and GSI for institutional cooperation and collaboration for implementation / validation of Experimental Regional Early Warning Forecast System for rainfall induced landslides. In addition, this MoU also intend to develop a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for flow of information for dissemination of Landslide Early Warning forecast system besides providing support for development of Disaster Management Plan for landslides within the State. The MoU was signed initially for five (05) years from the date of signing and can be extended upon by mutual agreement.
A joint collaboration among GSI, NRSC and ITC, The Netherlands was initiated in the year 2007 to carry out advanced research in landslide domain. As part of this programme, two researchers from GSI focused their work on the development of innovative landslide hazard and risk management methods. One researcher from NRSC focused on the creation of landslides inventory from high resolution IRS satellite data using automatic image classification methods. The GSI's work on landslide hazard and risk analysis in Darjeeling Himalaya and Nilgiri hills of Western Ghats resulted in more than 15 publications in International peer-reviewed Journals.
In order to evolve a methodology and to have a better understanding of the landslide problem, an attempt have been made for the first time by the Geological Survey of India and Geological Survey of Canada to develop an early warning system by installing instruments in slide area and monitor their movement through real time analysis between 2003 and 2008. To fulfill this objective a memorandum has been signed between Government of India and Government of Canada for monitoring/mitigation of landslides at selected sites in India in 2008. The pilot landslide sites selected for this Indo-Canadian Collaborative program on landslide mitigation are 9 mile Slide in Sikkim, Hospital Slide in Nilgiris and Surbee Slide in Mussorie area.
As part of Indo-Canadian collaboration under Landslide mitigation programme w.e.f 26.03.08 to 15.05.08 the training schedule divided into two phases: 1st Phase (26.05.08-09.04.08) - A GSI team comprises of three Directors (S/Shri D. N. Bhattacharya, V. Balachandran and R. K. Awasthy) and three field geologists (S/Shri C. Thanavelu, Niroj K. Sarkar and Pankaj Kumar) were exposed to the landslide problems existing in Canada, and were taken to the landslide sites and also shown the mitigation measures taken. Also during the first phase there had been several deliberations and discussions with the companies like RST, DGSI, TRE and Roc Test mainly dealing with the instruments which can be used in real time monitoring of landslides. 2nd Phase (11.04.08-15.05.08) - three visiting geologists were given training on Map Server training at DM solutions, Ottawa, Geomatica 10.1 at PCI Geomatics, Gatineau, Quebec and Geostudio 2007 modules at Geoslope International, Calgary to have much for better understanding of the technology and techniques being used by them in dealing with landslide studies, in particular.
In 2012, the umbrella MoU between Natural Resources, Canada and MoM/ GSI was extended for another 5-year Term till 2017 and an attempt is being initiated by both the countries to carry out/ continue landslide monitoring and early warning studies in some selected landslide sites in India using satellite-based (using RADARSAT 2 and RISAT II data) SAR Interfermetry techniques. For this, soon a joint site visit by the Canadian and GSI experts will be held (expected in November 2015) to fix the modalities of studies at two selected landslide sites (14th Mile/ Gayabari landslide, Darjeeling District, West Bengal and Hospital landslide, Conoor, Tamil Nadu). NRCan has already supplied five corner reflectors to GSI for this purpose.
MoU between Natural Resources, Canada and MoM/ GSI till 2017 completed a joint project on landslide monitoring at two sites in India using satellite-based (using RADARSAT 2 and RISAT II data) SAR Interferometry techniques. (14th Mile/ Gayabari landslide, Darjeeling District, West Bengal and Chibo hills, Kalimpong), including training of scientists from GSI.
GSI and British Geological survey (BGS) of Natural Environment Research Council of UK of the Natural Environment Research Council of UK signed a MoU for sharing of information and knowledge to enable collaborative research in the field of Earth Sciences, Mineral Prospecting and Disaster management. The MoU is signed in 2017 and has a validity of four years. Under this MoU, an Implementing Arrangement has been signed between GSI and BGS under the project called ‘LANDSLIP- Landslide Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment, Preparedness and Early Warning in South Asia: Integrating Meteorology, Landscape and Society’. The scope of the Project is to collaborate on a study to map landscape dynamics for the two study sites (Darjeeling-East Sikkim and The Nilgiris, India) at multiple spatio-temporal scales, including developing new knowledge, tools & methodologies, for preparation of landscape and other landscape dynamics thematic data, landslide inventory maps, hazard, susceptibility and risk analysis and modelling landslide types and domains, vulnerability/ impact assessment etc. to develop effective integration tools for Landslide Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment, Preparedness and Early Warning. This MoU was further extended for another four years till 2025. The main areas of collaboration include 3D Engineering Geological Modelling, Susceptibility, Hazard & Risk mapping and Early Warning for Natural Hazards (e.g. landslides), Stakeholder communication or dissemination for Early Warning Information (e.g. geohazards) and other areas of mutual interest to be decided upon by both the agencies.