This session is a compilation of two independent sessions: ITS1.7 ‘Sandy solutions for coastal safety, measurements and modelling’ and GM7.3 ‘Arctic coastal processes’.

Future projections show that coastal regions are among the most vulnerable ecosystems on our planet. From nearshore to dunes, the coastal system provides ecosystem services such as water supply and storage, recreation, biodiversity and flood protection, all of which can be considered of critical importance for human well-being. Climate change, sea level rise and anthropogenic impacts can affect these services by altering topography and habitat development. Flexible nature-based solutions have been proposed to promote resilience against climate change and safeguard coastal services for current and future generations. For this session we aim to bring together experts from varying disciplines focused on measuring, modelling and designing nature-based solutions in a changing world. This includes but is not limited to topics related to coastal morphology, sediment and vegetation dynamics, hydrology, and anthropogenic impacts.

Decreasing extent and duration of sea ice cover, changes in storm patterns as well as rising sea surface and air temperatures impact coastal processes in the Arctic. Wave overtopping, flooding and coastal erosion pose risks to societies and infrastructure located at the coast. There is a pressing need to understand the rates and mechanisms of coastal change to better predict future trajectories under the changing climate. In this session, we invite contributions from a range of disciplines and across time scales on local to pan-Arctic studies related to coastal processes in the Arctic. Those can include observational (satellite and instrumental) data, historical data, geological records and proxy data, model simulations as well as forecasts, for the past, present and future rates and drivers of Arctic coastal change. The common denominator of these studies will be their focus on a better understanding of short- to long-term mechanisms and feedbacks that drive Arctic coastal changes, and their impact on coastal communities and infrastructure, at local to global scales.

Landscapes, and how they change over time, provide the foundations of life and affect the ecosystems and human activities that can exist on Earth. Yet, there appears to be no single axis of causality between landscape and Earth surface processes, but rather, each entity can exert a simultaneous influence on the other over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. We are just starting to realise and explore the modes, trajectories and effects of these coupled systems, and to trace and infer the often non-linear feedback mechanisms.
Geomorphology inevitably stands in the center of an emerging science devoted to the Earth's surface, where strong couplings link human dynamics, biology, biochemistry, geochemistry, geology, hydrology, geomorphology, soil science, and atmospheric dynamics, including past and ongoing climate changes.
Motivated by the importance of understanding Earth surface interactions, couplings and feedbacks on a rapidly changing globe, this session will bring together a series of invited speakers to provide insights and perspectives on this hot topic from across the field of geomorphology.

Our planet is shaped by a multitude of physical, chemical and biological processes. Most of these processes and their effect on the ground’s properties can be sensed by seismic instruments – as discrete events or ongoing signatures. Seismic methods have been developed, adopted and advanced to study those dynamics at or near the surface of the earth, with unprecedented detail, completeness and resolution. The community of geophysicists interested in earth surface dynamics and geomorphologists, glaciologists, hydrologists, volcanologists, geochemists, biologists and engineering geologists interested in using arising geophysical tools and techniques is progressively growing and collaboratively advancing that emerging scientific discipline.

When you are interested in contributing to or getting to know about the latest methodological and theoretical developments, field and lab scale experimental outcomes, and the broad range of applications in geomorphology, glaciology, hydrology, meteorology, engineering geology, volcanology and natural hazards, then this session would be your choice. We anticipate a lively discussion about standing questions in earth surface dynamics research and how seismic methods could help solving them, we will debate about community based research opportunities and are looking forward to bringing together transdisciplinary knowledge and mutual curiousity.

Topical keywords: erosion, transient, landslide, rockfall, debris flow, fracturing, stress, granular flow, rock mechanics, snow avalanche, calving, icequake, basal motion, subglacial, karst, bedload, flood, GLOF, early warning, coast, tsunami, eruption, tremor, turbidity current, groundwater, soil moisture, noise, dv/v, HVSR, fundamental frequency, polarisation, array, DAS, infra sound, machine learning, classification, experiment.

We are happy to announce Agnes Helmstetter as invited speaker!

Recent advances in image collection, e.g. using unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs), and topographic measurements, e.g. using terrestrial or airborne LiDAR, are providing an unprecedented insight into landscape and process characterization in geosciences. In parallel, historical data including terrestrial, aerial, and satellite photos as well as historical digital elevation models (DEMs), can extend high-resolution time series and offer exciting potential to distinguish anthropogenic from natural causes of environmental change and to reconstruct the long-term evolution of the surface from local to regional scale.
For both historic and contemporary scenarios, the rise of techniques with ‘structure from motion’ (SfM) processing has democratized data processing and offers a new measurement paradigm to geoscientists. Photogrammetric and remote sensing data are now available on spatial scales from millimetres to kilometres and over durations of single events to lasting time series (e.g. from sub-second to decadal-duration time-lapse), allowing the evaluation of event magnitude and frequency interrelationships.
The session welcomes contributions from a broad range of geoscience disciplines such as geomorphology, cryosphere, volcanology, hydrology, bio-geosciences, and geology, addressing methodological and applied studies. Our goal is to create a diversified and interdisciplinary session to explore the potential, limitations, and challenges of topographic and orthoimage datasets for the reconstruction and interpretation of past and present 2D and 3D changes in different environments and processes. We further encourage contributions describing workflows that optimize data acquisition and processing to guarantee acceptable accuracies and to automate data application (e.g. geomorphic feature detection and tracking), and field-based experimental studies using novel multi-instrument and multi-scale methodologies. This session invites contributions on the state of the art and the latest developments in i) modern photogrammetric and topographic measurements, ii) remote sensing techniques as well as applications, iii) time-series processing and analysis, and iv) modelling and data processing tools, for instance, using machine learning approaches.

Numerical frameworks are essential for understanding and interpreting landscape evolution. Over recent decades, geochronological techniques such as cosmogenic nuclides, thermochronology, radiocarbon and luminescence dating have improved in accuracy, precision, and temporal range. Developments in geochronological methods, data treatment and landscape evolution models have provided new insights into the timing, duration and intensity of landscape evolution processes. The combination of temporal constraints with numerical modelling has enormous potential for improving our understanding of landscape evolution. The focus of this session is to bring together geochronology, data science and models of Quaternary landscape change.

This session includes studies of erosional rates and processes, sediment provenance, burial and transport times, bedrock exposure or cooling histories, landscape dynamics, and the examination of potential biases and discordances in geochronological data and model-data comparisons. We welcome contributions that apply novel geochronological methods and that intersect different geochronological techniques and numerical modelling with landscape evolution analysis, with particular focus on cosmogenic nuclides. This includes the determination of rates and timing of landscape change as well as stochastic events, or that highlight the latest developments and open questions in the application of geochronometers to landscape evolution problems.

Transport of sediments in geophysical flows occurs in mountainous, fluvial, estuarine, coastal, aeolian and other natural or man-made environments on Earth, while also shapes the surface of planets such as Mars, Titan, and Venus. Understanding the motion of sediments is still one of the most fundamental problems in hydrological and geophysical sciences. Such processes can vary across a wide range of scales - from the particle to the landscape - which can directly impact both the form (geomorphology) and, on Earth, the function (ecology and biology) of natural systems and the built infrastructure surrounding them. In particular, feedback between flow and sediment transport as well as interparticle interactions including size sorting are a key processes in surface dynamics, finding a range of important applications, from hydraulic engineering and natural hazard mitigation to landscape evolution and river ecology.

Specific topics of interest include (but are not restricted to):

A) particle-scale interactions and transport processes:
-mechanics of entrainment and disentrainment (for fluvial and aeolian flows)
-momentum (turbulent impulses) and energy transfer between turbulent flows and particles
-upscaling and averaging techniques for stochastic transport processes
-interaction among grain sizes in poorly sorted mixtures, including particle segregation

B) reach-scale sediment transport and geomorphic processes
-bedform generation, evolution and disintegration dynamics (e.g. for dunes and other formations)
-discrete element modelling of transport processes and upscaling into continuum frameworks
-derivation and solution of equations for multiphase flows (including fluvial and aeolian flows)
-shallow water hydro-sediment-morphodynamic processes

C) large-scale, highly unsteady and complex water-sediment flows:
-flash floods, debris flows and landslides due to extreme rainfall
-natural and build dam failures and compound disasters (due to landslides, debris flow intrusion and downstream flooding)
-reservoir operation schemes and corresponding fluvial processes
-design of hydraulic structures such as fish passages, dam spillways, also considering the impact of sediment
-dredging, maintenance and regulation for large rivers and navigational waterways

This session is promoted by the IAHR committee on Experimental Methods and Instrumentation.

The Earth's surface is shaped by many processes occurring over a wide range of time and length scales, all of which are interdependent with each other. Unraveling this complex system is challenging, especially because of the wide range of scales involved, which makes observation difficult. However, in recent years, major advances in understanding are being driven by new methods (e.g. by using fibre optic cables, or via environmental seismology) as well as the use of simplified and controlled experiments, which is widely used to monitor isolated processes or their interactions. Field observations may provide new opportunities to design and adapt the laboratory scale experiments, while laboratory experiments will help in better interpreting field observations. Together results from field and laboratory will provide insights to test and refine numerical models.

Thus, this session aims to bring together researchers from different communities that on one hand are working in the laboratory to reproduce and on the other hand are using novel field methods to monitor the natural processes in various systems and on various scales.

We welcome contributions but not limited to:
- fluvial and coastal systems
- aeolian processes and arid environments
- systems associated with melting, dissolution and precipitation
- gravity-driven flows
Finally, we particularly encourage participation from students and early career scientists.

Time is a fundamental variable for the understanding of history and dynamics of Earth and planetary processes. Consequently, precise and accurate determination of crystallisation, deposition, exhumation or exposure ages of geological materials has had, and will continue to have, a key role in the geosciences. In recent years, substantial improvement in spatial and temporal resolution of well-established dating techniques and development of new methods have revealed previously unknown complexity of natural systems and in many cases revolutionised our understanding of rates of fundamental geologic processes.

With this session, we aim to provide a platform to discuss 1) advances in a broad spectrum of geochronological and thermochronological methods (sample preparation, analytical techniques, interpretational and modelling approaches) and 2) applications of such methods to a variety of problems across the Earth sciences, across the geological time and across scales of the process studied. We particularly encourage presentations of novel and unconventional applications or attempts to develop new geo/thermochronometers.

Obtaining quantitative information on the spatial pattern of soil redistribution during storms and on the spatial sources supplying sediment to rivers is required to improve our understanding of the processes controlling these transfers and to design effective control measures. It is also crucial to quantify the transfer or the residence times of material transiting rivers along the sediment cascade, and to reconstruct the potential changes in sources that may have occurred at various temporal scales. During the last few decades, several sediment tracing or fingerprinting techniques have contributed to provide this information, in association with other methods (including soil erosion modelling and sediment budgeting). However, their widespread application is limited by several challenges that the community should address as priorities.
We invite specific contributions to this session that address any aspects of the following:
• Developments of innovative field measurement and sediment sampling techniques;
• Soil and sediment tracing techniques for quantifying soil erosion and redistribution;
• Sediment source tracing or fingerprinting studies, using conventional (e.g. elemental/isotopic geochemistry, fallout radionuclides, organic matter) or alternative (e.g. colour, infrared, particle morphometry) approaches;
• Investigations of the current limitations associated with sediment tracing studies (e.g. tracer conservativeness, uncertainty analysis, particle size and organic matter corrections);
• Applications of radioisotope tracers to quantify sediment transit times over a broad range of timescales (from the flood to the century);
• The association of conventional techniques with remote sensing and emerging technologies (e.g. LiDAR);
• Integrated approaches to developing catchment sediment budgets: linking different measurement techniques and/or models to understand sediment delivery processes.

Geophysical imaging techniques are widely used to characterize structures and processes in the shallow subsurface. Methods include imaging using P-wave seismic but also S-wave and multi-component techniques, (complex) electrical resistivity, electromagnetic, and ground-penetrating radar methods, as well as passive monitoring based on ambient noise or electrical self-potentials. Advances in experimental design, instrumentation, data acquisition, data processing, numerical modelling, and inversion constantly push the limits of spatial and temporal resolution. Despite these advances, the interpretation of geophysical images and properties often remains ambiguous. Persistent challenges addressed in this session include optimal data acquisition strategies, (automated) data processing and error quantification, appropriate spatial and temporal regularization of model parameters, integration of non-geophysical measurements and geological realism into the imaging process, joint inversion, as well as the quantitative interpretation of tomograms through suitable petro-physical relations.

In light of these topics, we invite submissions concerning a broad spectrum of near-surface geophysical imaging methods and applications at different spatial and temporal scales. Novel developments in the combination of complementary measurement methods, machine learning, and process-monitoring applications are particularly welcome.

Mountain belts are characterized by the fastest rates of physical erosion and chemical weathering around the world, making them one of the best places to observe sediment production (e.g. erosion, weathering) and transport processes. In these settings, varied processes such as rockfall, debris flow, hillslope failure, glacial and periglacial erosion, fluvial erosion, transport and deposition, and chemical weathering operate, often simultaneously, over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales.

As a result, tracking the interactions between denudation, climatic forcing, tectonic activity, vegetation and land use is complex. However, these feedbacks affect both long- and short-term natural surface processes, landscape development, and human interactions with the environment. Many of these processes also pose serious threats to the biosphere, mountain settlements and infrastructure. Therefore, understanding and quantifying rates of erosion, weathering, and deposition within mountain landscapes is a challenging, but crucial research topic in Earth surface processes.

We welcome contributions that (1) investigate the processes of production, mobilisation, transport, and deposition of sediment in mountain landscapes, (2) explore feedbacks between erosion and weathering due to natural and anthropogenic forcings, and (3) consider how these processes contribute to natural hazards specific to mountain landscapes. We invite presentations that employ observational, analytical or modeling approaches in mountain environments across a variety of temporal and spatial scales. We particularly encourage early career scientists to apply for this session.

Sediment transport is a fundamental component of all geomorphic systems (including fluvial, aeolian, coastal, hillslopes and glacial), yet it is something that we still find surprisingly difficult both to monitor and to model. Robust data on where and how sediment transport occurs are needed to address outstanding research questions, including the spatial and temporal controls on critical shear stress, the influence of varying grain size distributions, and the impact of large magnitude events. Recent developments have provided a) new opportunities for measuring sediment transport in the field; and b) new ways to represent sediment transport in both physical laboratory models and in numerical models. These developments include (but are not limited to) the application of techniques such as seismic and acoustic monitoring, 3D imaging (e.g. CT and MRI scanning), deployment of sensors such as accelerometers, replication of field topography using 3D printing, use of luminescence as a sediment tracer, remote sensing of turbidity, discrete numerical modelling, and new statistical approaches.

In this session we welcome contributions from all areas of geomorphology that develop new methods for monitoring and modelling all types of sediment transport, or that showcase an application of such methods. Contributions from ECRs and underrepresented groups are particularly encouraged.

Landslide susceptibility, the spatial likelihood of occurrence of landslides, is the subject of countless scientific publications. They use heterogeneous data, and apply many different methods, mostly falling under the definition of statistical and/or machine learning with the common feature of considering many input variables and a single target output, denoting landslide presence. It is a classification problem: given N input variables assuming different values, each combination associated with a 0/1 possible outcome, a model should be trained on some dataset, tested, and eventually it applied to unseen data.
Relevant input data (“predictors”, “factors”, “independent variables”) is usually a mixed set of topographic, morphometric, environmental, climatic, and a landslide inventory. Choice of a specific method depends on software availability, personal background, and existence of relevant literature in the area of interest. New methods are proposed regularly and very often is difficult to judge their relative performance based with respect to existing methods.
A meaningful comparison of many different methods would require a common dataset – a benchmark - to train and test each of them in a systematic way. This is a standard procedure in machine learning science and practice, for virtually all the fields: benchmark datasets exist for medical sciences, image recognition, linguistics, and in general any classification algorithm. The “Iris dataset” is a famous example of a benchmark in classification of numerical data into three different variants of the flower Iris. This session aims at establishing one or more benchmark datasets that could be helpful in landslide susceptibility research, to compare the plethora of existing methods and new methods to come.
We propose an interactive session: the organizers will single out benchmark datasets, share them with participants at due time, prior to the conference venue. We expect abstract proposals to describe the method(s) they intend to apply, the type of data it requires, and an independent case study for which the method proved successful. Participants should be ready to disclose minimal computer code (in any major programming language) to run their method, to apply the code to the benchmark dataset prior to the conference, and present their results. We aim at collecting all of the results in a journal publication, including datasets, benchmark and computer codes in collaboration with the participants.
Download dataset at: http://dx.doi.org/10.31223/X52S9C

A key goal within geomorphic research is understanding the processes linking topographic form, erosion rates, sediment production, transport and deposition, and external forcings such as tectonics, biotic or climatic. Numerical modelling, by allowing the creation of controlled analogues of natural systems, provides exciting opportunities to explore landscape evolution and generate testable predictions.

In this session, we invite contributions that use numerical modelling to investigate landscape evolution in a broad sense, and over a range of spatial and temporal scales. We welcome studies using models to constrain one or more of: erosion rates and processes, sediment production, transport and deposition, and biotic, climatic or tectonic forcings. We also particularly wish to highlight studies that combine numerical modelling with direct Earth surface process monitoring techniques, such as topographic, field, stratigraphic, geophysical or geochronological data. Contributions using numerical models to unravel the interaction between deep processes, such as mantle dynamics, or biotic processes with topographic patterns are further encouraged. There is no geographical restriction: studies may be focused on mountain environments or sedimentary basins, or they may establish links between the two. Studies beyond planet Earth are welcome too.

Rock mass deformation and failure at different stress levels (from the brittle regime to the brittle-ductile transition) are controlled by damage processes occurring on different spatial scales, from grain (µm) to geological formation (km) scale. These lead to a progressive increase of micro- and meso-crack intensity in the rock matrix and to the growth of inherited macro-fractures at rock mass scale. Coalescence of these fractures forms large-scale structures such as brittle fault zones, rockslide shear zones, and excavation damage zones (EDZ) in open pit mining and underground construction. Diffuse or localized rock damage have a primary influence on rock properties (strength, elastic moduli, hydraulic and electric properties) and on their evolution across multiple temporal scales spanning from geological time to highly dynamic phenomena as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, slopes and man-made rock structures. In subcritical stress conditions, damage accumulation results in brittle creep processes key to the long-term evolution of geophysical, geomorphological and geo-engineering systems
Damage and progressive failure processes must be considered to understand the time-dependent hydro-mechanical behaviour of fault damage zones and principal slip zones, and their interplay (e.g. earthquakes vs aseismic creep), volcanic systems and slopes (e.g. slow rock slope deformation vs catastrophic rock slides), as well as the response of rock masses to stress perturbations induced by artificial excavations (tunnels, mines) and loading. At the same time, damage processes control the brittle behaviour of the upper crust and are strongly influenced by intrinsic rock properties (strength, fabric, porosity, anisotropy), geological structures and their inherited damage, as well as by the evolving pressure-temperature with increasing depth and by fluid pressure, transport properties and chemistry.
In this session we will bring together researchers from different communities interested in a better understanding of rock deformation and failure processes and consequence, as well as other related rock mechanics topics. We welcome innovative and novel contributions on experimental studies (both in the laboratory and in situ), continuum / micromechanical analytical and numerical modelling, and applications to fault zones, reservoirs, slope instability and landscape evolution, and engineering applications.

Large mass movements in rock, debris and ice in glacial masses, represent enormous risks impacting on the socio economic tissue. These complex systems are difficult to describe, investigate, monitor and model. Hence a reliable model of these phenomena requires acquisition and analysis of all the available data. This is the key to support successive steps up to the management of Early Warning systems.
Large instabilities affect all the materials (rock, weak rocks, debris, ice), from low to high altitudes, evolving as slow or fast complex mass movements. This and the complex dependency on forcing factors result in different types and degrees of hazard and risk. Some aspects of these instabilities are still understudied and debated, because of the difficult characterization and few cases thoroughly studied. Regional and temporal distribution and relationships with controlling and triggering factors are poorly understood resulting in poor predictions of their behavior and evolution under present and future climate. Relationships among geological and hydrological boundary conditions and displacements are associated to mechanical controls, hydraulic response and evolution in space and time. Even for well studied and active phenomena warning thresholds are mostly qualitative, based on semi-empirical approaches and do not consider all available data. Then a multidisciplinary approach and a robust set of monitoring data are needed. Many modeling approaches can be applied to evaluate instability and failure, considering triggerings (e.g. rain, seismicity, eruption, snowmelt), failure propagation, leading to rapid mass movements (rock, debris, ice avalanches, flows). Nevertheless, the applied approaches are still phenomenological in most cases and have difficulty to explain the observed behavior. Impacts of such instabilities on structures represents a relevant risk but also an opportunity in terms of investigations and quantitative measurements of effects on structures (e.g. tunnels, dams, roads). Design of these structures and knowledge of their expected performance represent an important element.
We invite all the researchers to present case studies, sharing views and data, to discuss monitoring and modeling approaches and tools, to introduce new approaches for thresholds definition, including advanced numerical modeling, Machine Learning for streamline and offline data analyses, development of monitoring tools and dating or investigation techniques.

Rockfalls, rockslides and rock avalanches are among the primary hazards and drivers of landscape evolution in steep terrain. The physics of rock slope degradation and dynamics of failure and transport mechanisms define the hazards and possible mitigation strategies and enable retrodictions and predictions of events and controls.

This session aims to bring together state-of-the-art methods for predicting, assessing, quantifying, and protecting against rock slope hazards across spatial and temporal scales. We seek innovative contributions from investigators dealing with all stages of rock slope hazards, from weathering and/or damage accumulation, through detachment, transport and deposition, and finally to the development of protection and mitigation measures. In particular, we seek studies presenting new theoretical, numerical or probabilistic modelling approaches, novel data sets derived from laboratory, in situ, or remote sensing applications, and state-of-the-art approaches to social, structural, or natural protection measures. We especially encourage contributions from geomechanics/rock physics, geodynamics, geomorphology and tectonics to better understand how rockfall, rockslides and rock avalanches act across scales.

A well-designed experiment is a crucial methodology in Soil Science, Geomorphology and Hydrology.
Depending on the specific research topic, a great variety of temporal and spatial scales is addressed.
From raindrop impact and single particle detachment to the shaping of landscapes: experiments are designed and conducted to illustrate problems, clarify research questions, develop and test hypotheses, generate data and deepen process understanding.
Every step involved in design, construction, conduction, processing and interpretation of experiments and experimental data might be a challenge on itself, and discussions within the community can be a substantial and fruitful component for both, researchers and teachers.
This PICO session offers a forum for experimentalists, teachers, students and enthusiasts.
We invite you to present your work, your questions, your results and your method, to meet, to discuss, to exchange ideas and to consider old and new approaches.
Join the experimentalists!

The present context of accelerated changes in both climate and land use imposes an unprecedent pressure on a number of vulnerable ecosystems including wetlands, forests and rangelands, in which vegetation closely interacts and coevolves with soils and landforms. Complex interactions between climate, soils and biotic factors are involved in the development of landform-soil-vegetation feedbacks and play an important role in making ecosystems resilient to disturbances. In addition, large shifts in the distribution of vegetation and soils are associated with losses of ecosystem services (including carbon capture), frequently involving thresholds of ecosystem stability and nonlinear responses to both human and climatic pressures.

This session looks back on the successful and exciting sessions on landform-soil-vegetation coevolution and ecosystem stability annually held at EGU since 2013 and will focus on ecogeomorphological and ecohydrological aspects of landscapes and wathersheds (including their connectivity), the conservation of both soil and water resources, and the restoration of ecosystem services and functions.

We welcome theoretical, modelling and empirical studies as well as scaling approaches from the soil profile to the landscape scale addressing soil structure and its functions, including carbon and nutrient cycling, the distribution of vegetation and their coevolving landforms, and also contributions with a wide appreciation of the soil erosion-vegetation relationships that rule the formation of broad, landscape-level spatial organization. We also welcome studies describing the implications of these spatial patterns for the resilience, stability and restoration of ecosystems under the pressure of climate change and/or human disturbances.

We are proud to announce that Prof. Susana Bautista (Head of the Ramon Margalef Multidisciplinary Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Alicante, Spain) has agreed to participate in the session with the invited talk "Within-patch plant diversity modulates the hydrological source-sink dynamics of dryland landscapes".

This session comprises fracture focused research that spans disciplines and scales but is all intimately linked to coupled Thermal-Hydraulic-Mechanical-Chemical (THMC) processes and factors. We divide the session into two parts related to shallow and deep processes, respectively.

The first part is focused on progressive rock failure (PRF) and its applications to surface processes, rock physics and engineering research. Because fractures influence the hydromechanical properties of rocks such as porosity, permeability, erodibility and strength, the rock mechanics and rock physics of PRF is intimately linked to virtually all surface and critical zone processes and also extends beyond the natural world to our own built environment. Yet, the potentially central role that PRF may play in these fracture-related systems has been largely unrecognized or misconceived across surface-process, engineering, and rock physics applications.

The second part of the session is related to THMC processes in geothermal reservoirs with focus on the role of fractures and faults on the reservoir performance, its sustainable use and related risks. We invite contributions including: (i) fluid flow, permeability, fluid conductivity; (ii) heat flow, thermal conductivity and diffusivity; (iii) deformation either compression, shear, or tension; seismic or aseismic; (iv) fracture and fault (re)activation and related seismic risks; (v) coupled THM-processes in fractured and intact reservoir rocks.

Denudational hillslope and fluvial processes, associated source-to-sink fluxes and sedimentary budgets are controlled by a range of environmental drivers and anthropogenic activities, exacerbated by the consequences of climate change. An improved understanding of the key drivers, mechanisms and quantitative rates of contemporary denudational hillslope and fluvial processes as well as of the sediment and hydrological connectivity across a range of different spatio-temporal scales and climatic zones has significant societal implications for water quality, infrastructures, aquatic ecosystems, public safety, and biogeochemical cycles.
This session aims to bring together interdisciplinary scientists working across various field, experimental, numerical modelling, remote sensing and dating approaches that are advancing methods and providing new insights into (i) slope mass movements (e.g., landslides, rockfalls, and debris flows) and related hazard cascades in mountain environments, (ii) water, sediment and solute source-to-sink processes in different climatic zones (e.g., cold climate, temperate, arid and tropical regions) from small headwater to large river systems at event, seasonal, and multi-decadal scales; and (iii) the anthropogenic impacts and societal implications of changing hillslope and fluvial denudation processes and possible solutions for future sustainable management.
We particularly encourage the participation of early-career researchers and PhD students working in the fields of geomorphology, hydrology, hazards, glaciers, permafrost and aquatic ecosystems, as we wish to expand and integrate the international network of researchers addressing this complex subject across scientific disciplines.

This session is co-organized by the IAG Working Group on Denudation and Environmental Changes in Different Morphoclimatic Zones (DENUCHANGE, 2017-2026).

A source-to-sink approach represents a quantitative and integrated characterization of the processes involved in the production, transport, and deposition of sediments along a sediment routing system (SRS). This approach conceptualizes the SRS as an interconnected system in which external forcings (such as tectonics and climate) generate and propagate signals that might be recorded in the sedimentary record. Such studies aim at re-creating the spatio-temporal framework of the nature and intensity of the perturbations induced along a sedimentary system due to an external forcing. This has important implications for understanding the sensitivity of the Earth’s surface to tectono-environmental changes, for the reconstruction of paleoclimates, and for modeling the future dynamics of sedimentary systems on the planet. In addition, a sediment routing system approach is a vital tool for the effective identification and management of mineral, hydrocarbon, and water resources.

In this session, we invite scientists who study the signal generation and propagation in source to sink systems from a wide range of backgrounds (e.g., sedimentology, geomorphology, geochemistry, remote sensing, and geomodelling), and we encourage studies focusing on provenance, sedimentary budgets, and response timescales. Further, we welcome contributions focusing on environmental changes and disentangling the role between climate and tectonics, including paleoclimatic response, feedback mechanisms, and applied studies, for instance, raw material production and risk analysis associated with sediment generation and transport.

Connectivity has emerged as a significant conceptual framework for understanding the transfer of water and materials (e.g. sediment, nutrients, POC, large wood, plant propagules) through landscapes. The concept of connectivity has had particular success in the fields of hydrology, fluvial geomorphology and soil erosion, but has also been employed in, for example, studies of hydrochory. Connectivity as applied in various disciplines can be a transformative concept in understanding complex systems, allowing analyses of how such systems behave in terms of scaling, catastrophic/phase transitions, critical nodes, emergence and self-organization, e.g. by applying network-based analyses and modelling. Recent research also highlights the widespread nature of dis-connectivity landscape systems, caused by natural and anthropogenic structures including dams, log jams, or agricultural terraces. These and other forms of dis-connectivity can have large spatial and temporal implications on ecological, geomorphic, hydrological and biogeochemical processes, e.g. through buffering water and material fluxes. We aim to create a diverse interdisciplinary session that reflects a broad range of research seeking to illustrate the role of (dis-)connectivity in landscape systems. We hope to use the session to develop a discussion on the importance of (dis-)connectivity to generate a basis for an integrated framework to be applied across different fields of geosciences (incl. management applications).

Landslides, debris flows and avalanches are common types of unsteady bulk mass movements. Globally, the risk from these mass movements is expected to increase, due to changes in precipitation patterns, rising average temperatures and continued urbanisation of mountainous regions. Climate change also reduces the power of site-specific empirically-based predictions, requiring updated approaches for effective and robust management of the associated risk.

Given sustained improvements in computational power, the techniques involving artificial intelligence and explicit hydromechanical modelling are becoming more and more widespread. Both techniques have the advantages of reducing our dependence on empirical approaches. This session thus covers two main domains:

1) New approaches and state-of-the-art artificial intelligence techniques on remote sensing data for creating and updating landslide inventories.
2) Advances in hydromechanical numerical models and digital tools for geophysical mass flows.

The ultimate goal of both is integration into the wider context of hazard and/or risk assessment and mitigation.

Contributions to this session may involve:
(a) Regional scale analysis for landslide detection and applications for establishing multi-temporal inventories.
(b) Data processing, fusion, and data manipulation, as well as novel AI model tuning practices.
(c) Evaluating the quality of landslide detection through AI techniques.
(d) Comparing the performance of different AI segmentation models.
(e) Novel constitutive and hydromechanical modelling of flows, both at the field- and laboratory-scales.
(f) Hydromechanical modelling of the interaction of mass movements with structural countermeasures.
(g) Advances in risk analysis through the integration of digital technologies and multidisciplinary viewpoints (potentially including combining AI and hydromechanical modelling techniques).

The global increase in damaging landslide events has attracted the attention of governments, practitioners, and scientists to develop functional, reliable and (when possible) low cost monitoring strategies. Numerous case studies have demonstrated how a well-planned monitoring system of landslides is of fundamental importance for long and short-term risk reduction.
Today, the temporal evolution of a landslide is addressed in several ways, encompassing classical and more complex in situ measurements or remotely sensed data acquired from satellite and aerial platforms. All these techniques are adopted for the same final scope: measure landslide motion over time, trying to forecast future evolution or minimally reconstruct its recent past. Real time, near-real time and deferred time strategies can be profitably used for landslide monitoring, depending on the type of phenomenon, the selected monitoring tool, and the acceptable level of risk.
This session follows the general objectives of the International Consortium on Landslides, namely: (i) promote landslide research for the benefit of society, (ii) integrate geosciences and technology within the cultural and social contexts to evaluate landslide risk, and (iii) combine and coordinate international expertise.
Considering these key conceptual drivers, this session aims to present successful monitoring experiences worldwide based on both in situ and/or remotely sensed data. The integration and synergic use of different techniques is welcomed, as well as newly developed tools or data analysis approaches, including big data management strategies. The session is expected to present case studies in which multi-temporal and multi-platform monitoring data are exploited for risk management and Civil Protection aims with positive effects in both social and economic terms. Specific relevance is given to the evaluation of the impact of landslides on cultural heritage.