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The international journal Landslides: Journal of International Consortium on Landslides was established in April 2004. The aims of Landslides are to promote landslide science, technology, and capacity building, and to strengthen global cooperation for landslide risk reduction within the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (ISDR). The achievements of the first 5 years from the beginning of 2004 (Vol. 1, No. 1) to the mid-2009 (Vol. 6, No. 2) were reviewed in 2009 (). This article presents the review for the second 5-year period from mid-2009 (Vol. 6, No. 3) to the end of 2013 (Vol. 10, No. 6), focusing on the journal's significance and its impact. We include an analysis of the classifications of articles in Landslides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international journal Landslides was initiated in April 2004. It is the core project (IPL-C100) of the International Programme on Landslides, a joint initiative of the International Consortium on Landslides and the United Nations and other global organizations. The aims of Landslides are to promote landslide sciences, technology, and capacity building and strengthen global cooperation for landslide risk reduction within the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. This paper presents an analysis of the first 5 years of Landslides, the study methods employed, the types and major causes of landslides, the number of different contributors per country, and the “times cited” per issue and most frequently cited papers and briefly discusses some of these. Strategies for future development of the journal involve obtaining input and suggestion from researchers and readers worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argillaceous rocks can display a wide range of durability behavior after excavation and in cut slopes. In this paper, we propose a classification of argillaceous rocks based on their textural characteristics. Three main components of the classification scheme are the clastic framework, the fine-grained matrix, and the cementing agent. Unlike other schemes, the unlithified argillaceous sediments are included as well. The names proposed for the rocks broadly follow the existing nomenclature used in petrographic classifications. The durability of some argillaceous rock types has been assessed by taking into account a set of degradation features of the excavated slopes. It has been observed that the ratios of these textural components exert a strong control on the long-term durability of slopes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On April 20, 2013, a Mw 6.6 earthquake struck Lushan County of Sichuan Province, China, about 80 km southwest of the epicenter of the 12 May 2008 Wenchuan Mw 7.9 event. It triggered a large number of landslides in a broad area, causing causality and injuries and damages to roads, drains, dwellings, and infrastructures. Field investigations of coseismic landslides provide a basis for better understanding and illustrating the spatial distributions and hazards related to the Lushan earthquake-triggered landslides. Therefore, this paper presents results of field investigations of the Lushan earthquake-triggered landslides, which can be classified into two main categories of disrupted landslides and coherent landslides, and constitutes seven types. The disrupted landslides include five types: rock falls, rock slides, rock avalanches, soil falls, and soil slides; and the coherent landslides have two types: soil slumps and slow earth flows. All of the seven types of landslides can be observed in many field photos, aerial photographs, and/or satellite images. Among them, seven typical large-scale landslides, distributed in a northeast trending line consistent with the Shuangshi-Dachuan fault, which is presumably related with the earthquake, are described in detail. We prepared an original, emergency-based coseismic landslide inventory map based on visual interpretation of available post-earthquake aerial photographs and pre-earthquake satellite images, combined with results from emergency-based field investigations. The original inventory map registered 3884 landslides. Later, 11,761 more landslides were identified by much more careful and time-consuming visual interpretation based on the same aerial photographs and satellite images. Subsequently, all the 15,645 coseismic landslides were correlated with six common landslide impact factors, including elevation, slope angle, slope aspect, topographic position, stratum/lithology, and peak ground accumulation (PGA). These observational and compiled coseismic landslide data allow us to make subsequent compiling of a detailed and completed landslide inventory by visual interpretation of remote sensing images as well as further studies of landslides induced by the Lushan earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a proposal, developed as part of the EC-sponsored SafeLand project, to supplement existing landslide classifications with a more detailed description of the geomechanical characteristics of the materials to include the effects of 'structure' and stress history, as determined by depositional and post-depositional processes. This provides a valuable insight into and a rational basis for the modelling of the physical mechanisms that govern the triggering and subsequent development of landslides. The classification, behaviour and minimum requirements for the constitutive modelling of saturated clays and sands are summarized here. The use of advanced constitutive models which include, where necessary, progressive damage to the microstructure of the material helps to predict the conditions and the style of triggering and of subsequent movement of landslides, depending on the type of material, even in first time landslides. Numerical examples are presented, illustrating the different response to rapid perturbation of sensitive clays versus mechanically overconsolidated clays and of 'loose' sands versus 'dense' sands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to revise several aspects of the well-known classification of landslides, developed by Varnes (). The primary recommendation is to modify the definition of landslide-forming materials, to provide compatibility with accepted geotechnical and geological terminology of rocks and soils. Other, less important modifications of the classification system are suggested, resulting from recent developments of the landslide science. The modified Varnes classification of landslides has 32 landslide types, each of which is backed by a formal definition. The definitions should facilitate backward compatibility of the system as well as possible translation to other languages. Complex landslides are not included as a separate category type, but composite types can be constructed by the user of the classification by combining two or more type names, if advantageous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]