THE USGS-USAID LANDSLIDE DISASTER ASSISTANCE TEAM: HELPING TO BUILD LANDSLIDE TECHNICAL CAPACITY WITH PARTNER COUNTRIES

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Landslide Disaster Assistance Team (LDAT) strives to support foreign partners on landslide hazards through training, hazards education, and emergency response. LDAT assists foreign partners, upon their request, with technical capacity building on issues they have identified as priorities for disaster risk reduction related to landslide hazards. Our goal is to support and empower foreign partners in identifying and mitigating their national landslides hazards. In addition, LDAT scientists who engage in these activities broaden their scientific perspective and develop important relationships with international colleagues. LDAT draws scientists from across the USGS and other agencies. These scientists have diverse specialties and areas of expertise including landslide inventory and susceptibility mapping, remote sensing, emergency response, runout and mobility modelling, landslide and rockfall hazard assessments, storm-induced shallow landslides and debris flows, earthquake-induced landslides, landslide instrumentation, post-wildfire debris flow modelling, and landslide hazard education and outreach.

LDAT is a joint program of the USGS and U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID/BHA) and operates similarly to the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP) and works closely with the Earthquake Disaster Assistance Team (EDAT). LDAT is currently engaging in technical assistance activities in Sri Lanka, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, and the Federated States of Micronesia.