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Smart and Sustainable Solutions for Landslide and Landslide Dam Risks in a Changing Climate

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainability in Geographic Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 September 2026 | Viewed by 1741

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Civil and Transportation Engineering, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, China
Interests: landslide dynamics; sustainable geohazard mitigation; smart monitoring systems

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Guest Editor
School of Civil and Transportation Engineering, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China
Interests: AI for geohazards

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Guest Editor
College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China
Interests: landslide dam hydrology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change intensifies the frequency and severity of landslides and landslide dams, threatening communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems. Traditional mitigation approaches often lack adaptability to dynamic environmental conditions. This Special Issue seeks cutting-edge research on smart, sustainable, and resilience-driven strategies to predict, monitor, and mitigate these risks. We emphasize innovations leveraging AI, IoT, remote sensing, and nature-based solutions (NBS), alongside socio-economic policies for sustainable risk reduction.

Aim:

  1. Advance interdisciplinary frameworks integrating geotechnical engineering, climate science, and digital technologies.
  2. Highlight low-carbon, eco-friendly mitigation measures (e.g., bioengineering, hybrid defense structures).
  3. Explore equity and governance in landslide risk management for vulnerable regions.

Scope:

This Special Issue aligns with Sustainability’s goals by addressing UN SDGs 11 (Sustainable Cities), 13 (Climate Action), and 15 (Life on Land). We welcome original research, reviews, and case studies focusing on the following:

  1. AI and Digital Twins:

Machine learning for real-time landslide prediction and early warning systems.

Digital twin platforms simulating landslide dam breaches under climate scenarios.

  1. Green Technologies:

Bioengineering (e.g., vegetation-reinforced slopes) and circular materials (e.g., recycled composites for barriers).

Low-energy sensor networks for landslide monitoring.

  1. Climate Adaptation:

Impact of extreme weather (e.g., rainfall patterns, permafrost thaw) on landslide triggers.

Adaptive governance models for transboundary landslide dam risks.

  1. Community Resilience:

Participatory GIS (PGIS) for risk communication in marginalized communities.

Cost–benefit analyses of sustainable vs. conventional mitigation strategies.

Dr. Yixiang Song
Dr. Qiujie Meng
Dr. Zhu Zhong
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • landslide early warning
  • AI in geohazards
  • sustainable mitigation
  • climate adaptation
  • digital twin
  • bioengineering
  • IoT monitoring
  • landslide dam breaching
  • risk governance
  • sdgs

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 4302 KB  
Article
Assessment of Sediment-Related Disasters in Snowmelt Season Under Climate Change
by Taichi Yamazaki, Shima Kawamura, Hayato Yumiyama, Ikuto Takeuchi, Yuta Izumi and Fathin Nurzaman
Sustainability 2026, 18(5), 2214; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18052214 - 25 Feb 2026
Viewed by 286
Abstract
Snowmelt-season sediment hazards in cold regions are becoming increasingly complex under climate change, as rising air temperatures and rainfall-on-snow events enhance interactions between snow, meltwater, and sediment. Compound processes may generate hazard magnitudes that are inadequately captured when avalanches and debris flows are [...] Read more.
Snowmelt-season sediment hazards in cold regions are becoming increasingly complex under climate change, as rising air temperatures and rainfall-on-snow events enhance interactions between snow, meltwater, and sediment. Compound processes may generate hazard magnitudes that are inadequately captured when avalanches and debris flows are assessed independently. This study develops a first-order framework for assessing snowmelt-season sediment hazards, using the 2018 Nozuka Tunnel disaster in Hokkaido, Japan, as a case study. Numerical simulations for the three scenarios (avalanche flow, debris flow, and snow–sediment mixed flow) were conducted under identical topographic and numerical conditions to evaluate the influence of snow–sediment interactions on the flow behavior, affected area, and deposition characteristics. Key initiation and material parameters were constrained via inverse analysis (parameter-search calibration) using the observed deposition extent, and Sentinel-1 SAR-derived surface change areas were used as independent spatial information to assess the plausibility and spatial consistency of the simulated deposition footprint. Future hazard amplification was examined using projected climate conditions. The snow–sediment mixed-flow scenario produces larger affected areas and deposition volumes than simulations that treat avalanche- or debris flow processes independently, and its simulated deposition extent is spatially consistent with SAR imagery. Future hazards may be amplified under warmer and wetter conditions. The proposed framework integrates disaster records, topographic analysis, validated snow–sediment mixed-flow simulations, and impact-area estimations to support hazard assessment and disaster mitigation in snow-dominated cold regions. These insights support climate-adaptive, sustainable infrastructure risk management in snow-dominated cold regions. Full article
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19 pages, 8250 KB  
Article
Crack Detection and Displacement Measurement of Earth-Fill Dams Based on Computer Vision and Deep Learning
by Weiwu Feng, Siwen Cao, Lijing Fang, Wenxue Du and Shuaisen Ma
Sustainability 2025, 17(22), 10186; https://doi.org/10.3390/su172210186 - 14 Nov 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1141
Abstract
Intelligent crack detection and displacement measurement are critical for evaluating the health status of dams. Earth-fill dams, composed of fragmented independent material particles, are particularly vulnerable to climate changes that can exacerbate cracking and displacement. Existing crack segmentation methods often suffer from discontinuous [...] Read more.
Intelligent crack detection and displacement measurement are critical for evaluating the health status of dams. Earth-fill dams, composed of fragmented independent material particles, are particularly vulnerable to climate changes that can exacerbate cracking and displacement. Existing crack segmentation methods often suffer from discontinuous crack segmentation and misidentification due to complex background noise. Furthermore, current skeleton line-based width measurement techniques demonstrate limited accuracy in processing complex crack patterns. To address these limitations, this study introduces a novel three-step approach for crack detection in earth-fill dams. Firstly, an enhanced YOLOv8-CGA crack segmentation method is proposed, incorporating a Cascaded Group Attention (CGA) mechanism into YOLOv8 to improve feature diversity and computational efficiency. Secondly, image processing techniques are applied to extract sub-pixel crack edges and skeletons from the segmented regions. Finally, an adaptive skeleton fitting algorithm is developed to achieve high-precision crack width estimation. This approach effectively integrates the pattern recognition capabilities of deep learning with the detailed delineation strengths of traditional image processing. Additionally, dam crest displacements and crack zone strain field are measured via the digital image correlation (DIC) method. The efficacy and robustness of the proposed method are validated through laboratory experiments on an earth-fill dam model, demonstrating its potential for practical structural health monitoring (SHM) applications in a changing climate. Full article
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