Hi everyone. My name is Lori Peak and
I'm a professor of sociology and
director of the Natural Hazard Center
here at the University of Colorado
Boulder. It is my pleasure to welcome you
to the monthly Making Mitigation Work
webinar series which is hosted by the
Natural Hazard Center and made possible
with the support of the Federal 
Emergency Management Agency and the
National Science Foundation. This webinar
series highlights recent progress in
mitigation policy, practice, and research.
We are so grateful that you have made
time to join with us today. We know that
many of you have been responding to a
series of cascading crises from
climate-related disasters, to COVID-19
to mass protests that have
swept the nation. As always we
acknowledge those who are on the
frontlines of these catastrophes from
the health care workers, to the emergency
managers, to the federal, state, and local
officials, to the researchers and many
others who are seeking to understand and
work to reduce the many risks that
people face. Today you will hear one
especially inspiring story of a
collaborative effort to reduce landslide
risk in Puerto Rico. A few announcements
before we begin the formal webinar
presentation. This forum is being
recorded the caption webinar video and
the presentation slides will be posted
online at the natural hazard Center
website which is hazards.colorado.edu.
This is also where you can find the
recordings and supplemental materials
from the prior Making Mitigation Work
webinars as well as access many other
free resources.
Thanks to a partnership with the
International Association of Emergency
Managers, we can offer one contact hour
of emergency management training through
the IAEM certification program. To
receive the credit you are required to
attend the entire webinar session today.
Please visit the making mitigation work
web page under the trainings tab at
hazard.colorado.edu for more information.
You can con contact Katie Murphy whose
email address is on the web site for
more information on receiving your
certificate for attending this webinar
today. If at any point during the
presentation you have questions or
comments you can offer those either via
the chat function or the Q&A box on
Zoom. Our speakers will respond to
questions as time permits during the
webinar. For those questions we are
unable to get to we will share written
responses via the Making Mitigation Work
webinar page.  Without further ado I would
like to introduce you to our five
speakers for today's webinar. Please note
that you can find the speakers full and
highly impressive BIOS on the natural
hazards on our website. For now let me
please offer a brief introduction Raquel
Lugo Bendezu is a geology student at
the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez
who has also served as an undergraduate
research assistant on the Landslide
project you will hear about today.
Yahaira D Alvarez Gandia is it also an
undergraduate student from the
University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez
majoring in geology with an emphasis in
Natural Resources and she also along
with her pal
served as an undergraduate research
assistant on this project. We are so
thrilled they've joined us today and
look forward to hearing from them.
Lindsay Davis is the earthquake disaster
assistant team manager at the US
Geological Survey. Before joining the
USGS in the fall of 2019
Lindsay was a research associate here at
the Natural Hazard Center where she
played a leading
in launching and initiating the
landslide project. Jonathan Godt is the
coordinator of the US Geological Survey
landslide hazards program hazards
program and is responsible for directing
the only federal program divided devoted
to landslide science and Risk Reduction.
Jonathan has received many accolades
throughout his career but around here we
hold him up as the visionary who both
birthed the idea for the landslide guide
and help bring Lindsey Davis to the
Center. For that we are forever grateful
for him. Last but certainly not least
Jocelyn West is a graduate research
assistant here at the Natural Hazard
Center and a doctoral student in
sociology. Before joining us here at the
University of Colorado Boulder
Jocelyn worked on global risk
communication efforts and other
initiatives through the World Bank in
Washington DC. I could say so much more
about each of these five speakers but I
want to end this introduction by saying
this: not only are they extraordinary
researchers and practitioners and
policymakers they are also a team that
has come together for a broader vision
and through a commitment to the people
and the island of Puerto Rico. It is
truly my honor to welcome our speakers
today. So now I'm going to stop sharing
my slides and we'll turn this over to
our first presenter Jonathan Godt. 
Jonathan over to you.
Thanks Lori. 
Oh there we go Jonathan. Thank you. Thank
you. Thank you for that wonderful
introduction I'm so pleased today to
kick off this webinar that will describe
a collaborative process that we use to
create a landslide guidebook and other
materials to communicate the risk from
landslides in Puerto Rico. And can switch
to the next slide. Thank you so the idea
for this project came out of response
efforts to hurricane Maria back in 2017
and one of the devastating impacts of
the storm was the widespread landslides
that were generated by the heavy rain.
The USGS was asked to send a team of
geologists to assist the federal
response in Puerto Rico and our role
there was to identify any ongoing
landslide threats and provide
recommendations to the federal response
and recovery efforts. Landslides are a
frequent and common hazard in Puerto
Rico but the number and extent of
landsliding from Hurricane Maria was
truly exceptional. Rainfall from the
hurricane triggered more than 70,000
landslides that impacted most of the
mountainous parts of the island. Our work
took us across the island over a period
of a couple weeks and our conversations
with local emergency response officials
and planning officials identified the
need for both some scientific products
to help decisions about land side risks
such as maps, but also educational
materials including the landslide guide
we're going to talk about today. So the
USGS was tasked to deliver a variety of
scientific studies and products to
assist with the recovery and rebuilding
efforts after Hurricane Maria and we
also developed this landslide guide to
complement those efforts and to support
a broader campaign
of landslide risk awareness. A few of the
scientific products are shown on this
slide here and include a landslide
inventory which is a digital database of
the location of each of those more than
70,000 landslides and this database was
used to create a landslide
susceptibility map for the entire island.
That effort was led by Stephen Hughes
who is a geology professor at the
University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez and
Bill Schulz a landslide
geologist at the USGS the map data. And
the susceptibility map I had were
recently released and can be accessed at
the link shown on the below the map
there on the slide and we are at the
USGS are also working on other studies
and products to help understand and
manage the landside risk in Puerto Rico.
The landside guidebook is a 16 page
booklet available in both Spanish and
English and the guide and a variety of
related products can be downloaded from
the project web page located at hazards.colorado.edu/puertorico
 and
Puerto Rico's all one word. The guide and
other landslide education materials have
been designed to complement the science
products and help a variety of
stakeholders to discuss landslide hazard
and risk with the residents of Puerto
Rico. And finally the landslide guide has
provided a fantastic opportunity for the
USGS and the Natural Hazards Center to
take advantage of a long-standing
cooperation by partnering to respond to
the needs of the residents of Puerto
Rico.
The guidebook project began back in 2018
as you'll see in just a moment quickly
expanded to include students and faculty
from the University of Puerto Rico
Mayaguez. Their participation was
critical to ensuring the risk
communication materials were developed
in a way that put the residents, students,
and professionals of Puerto Rico at the
center. This slide highlights some of the
team members from the three
organizations and I'll close by saying I
couldn't be happier with their efforts
and the results and I hope we can use
this experience as a model for other
activities in the futur. And now we're
going to conduct a quick poll so that we
can get a sense of the different sectors
represented today's 
webinar participants and then I'll hand
it over to Lindsay Davis to talk a bit
more about the guide itself.
Nice and for those of you on the phone
the question today was into which
category does your work fall and about
half of our webinar participants today
say they're with federal, national, tribal,
or territorial government. About 18% are
with an academic institution, 16% with
state government, and then the remainder
from local government and the private
sector and so thank you so much to
everybody for joining with us today and
Jonathan thank you for that wonderful
launch and I'll stop sharing the poll
results right now and Lindsay over to
you. All right thanks Lori. Can you
still see the slide? Yes. Perfect all
right hi everyone as Lori and Jonathan
mentioned my name is Lindsay Davis and I
work for the US Geological Survey. I'd
like to start by saying that in this
presentation we'd like to call your
attention to the fact that the landslide
guide has multiple distinct purposes for
the many stakeholders who helped to
bring it to life, which for us is the
most important thing to understand about
the guide. The guide is at risk
communication product but because of the
process we use to create it the guide
also has all of these other meanings and
purposes. We use the guides development
to build and nurture a diverse network
of stakeholders who helped create and
improve the guide which in turn provided
an opportunity to broaden the risk
communication effort. Many of the
scientists professors practitioners
students and others that participated in
providing the content or reviewing the
guide remain involved in helping to
promote the guide across the island for
which we're very grateful.
We saw the guide as a starting point and
the process used to create it as an
opportunity to foster the relationships
necessary to share information about
landslide risk with many people and
through many channels. So this roadmap
represents the steps we took throughout
this project starting with the request
from stakeholders in Puerto Rico in 2017.
It includes the effort to collect the
necessary information to inform
thoughtful development of the guide,
graphic design, and draft development
review and feedback and release of the
guide. We're currently in the phase of
the project
in which we have developed at
communications an outreach plan which
we're using to direct the print and
digital distribution of the landslide
guide as well as the development of
complementary tools and products that
address additional stakeholder needs and
requests. This project was designed to be
inclusive and to focus on co-production
as the primary mechanism by which the
guide was produced. The goals of the
project extend beyond creating a paper
guide about landslide hazards. Right, next
I'd like to discuss a little bit about
the information gathering phase of the
projec. So this preliminary phase
involved three major components first a
systematic review of landslide guides
that had been produced by other
organizations in the past both within
and outside of Puerto Rico. One of our
favorite examples of a well-made guide
was produced by the Washington and
Oregon geological surveys. Second we
created an annotated bibliography of
relevant literature that focused on risk
communication and third we used a
snowball sampling approach to connect
with relevant stakeholders through a
system of referrals. Throughout this
process we conducted informal interviews
and focus groups in addition to
informing the content of the guide the
network we built for this project
underpinned every additional stage of
the project. Many stakeholders from
across the island contributed content
and photos to the guide acted as
reviewers or are an active part of the
plan to disseminate and publicize the
guide.
Based on the information we gathered we
were able to develop an initial concept
for the landslide guide at a minimum the
guide needed to meet the criteria listed
here. We knew we wanted the guide to be
developed in Spanish by native Puerto
Rican Spanish speakers and to be
translated into English after completion.
It needed to be highly visual to
accommodate the needs of a population
with different literacy rates in
multiple spoken languages. It had to be
easy to understand since there are
varying levels of education throughout
the island particularly in the interior
mountains which have had some of the
highest landslide potential. It needed to
be scientifically accurate and
culturally relevant with respect to
Puerto Rico and we also wanted the guide
to be endorsed and used by a wide
variety of stakeholders throughout the
island. We had a desire to incorporate
local stakeholders into the development
of the guide from the beginning. The
process of selecting an appropriate
counterpart was part of the information
gathering and networking stage. My team
from the University of Puerto Rico
Mayaguez joined the project as our
primary counterpart. Steven Hughes who as
you heard was already working with the
USGS on the scientific products
mentioned earlier, offered to collaborate
on the landslide guide as well. We put
out a call for applications and higher
to undergraduate geology students from
the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez
to work as research assistants on the
project. Both students receive stipends
and school credit for their
participation in the project. All right
now I'm going to pass it off to Yahaira
Alvarez to talk about how the
undergraduates became involved in the
project and to share some of her
experience related to landslides in
hurricane Maria.
Okay it does. Thank You Yahaira. Hi
everyone my name is Yahaira and I'm
going to share our experience we landslide 
hazards in Puerto Rico as a geology
undergrad students we were aware about
landslides but it was not until
hurricane Maria that we were more
conscious about how dangerous they could
be. As Puerto Ricans going through this
atmospheric event made us see things
from a different perspective.
We saw the roads obstructed by large
rocks and debris floes in many parts of
the island. We also had the opportunity
to volunteer with a group from the UPRM
to help in one of the most affected
municipalities located in
the mountainous, Utuado, regions of the island.
Once we got to Utuado, we saw how people
lost their homes and belongings as the
rubble and mud had entered through their
houses windows and their cars were
trapped in sediments. They were emotional
well when telling us about their
experience during the hurricane but
despite everything they were grateful to
have survived. People had lost her houses
as we can see in the images the sediment
entered through the windows of the
residence and reached the kitchen
leaving the entire house covered in mud. We
were tasked with working on the draft of
the landslide guide including helping to
decide on the content of the guide and
to decide the content for the landslide
guide.
We developed the guide in Adobe
Illustrator in Spanish first and later
translated into English. As part of the
process we learned to work with a design
software which we had not used before. We
also use examples from other lands like
guides along with our knowledge of Puerto
Rico to create pages to illustrate the
content chosen by the team. This is an
example from the guide that shows
natural phenomena that trigger last
slide as well as human activities that
contribute to landslide susceptibility.
This project has allowed us to develop
many professional skills and become
proficient in the use of graphic design
programs. Some of our tasks have include
design atlast like guide and extending
that information into other products
like social media posts and presentation
decks that emergency managers can used
to educate their communities. As well as
having the opportunity to go to
conferences and present our work while
simultaneously learning about other
products in the hazards and mitigation
field. These conferences has served as a
very useful way to show the guide to
hazards professional and getting their
feedback for improvement. In conferences
we have present are the National Hazard
Center workshop, DSA, and the RISE
conference. We are proud to have
contributed to this project we believe
this guide has been and will be
beneficial to Puerto Ricans as an effort
to raise awareness and educate people on
the island about landslide hazards.
Collaboration with locals have been a
main focus to make sure the information
is relevant to Puerto Ricans our advice
for future projects that
are looking to collaborate with other
institution is to immerse itself in the
communities and find local institution
and professional to offer if possible
professional opportunities like
internship to undergrads, have an array
of different people in the reviewing
process, and be open to ideas. Now I'm
going to pass control to Jocelyn.
Hello everyone. Again I'm Jocelyn a PhD
student and graduate research assistant
at the Natural Hazards Center at the
University of Colorado Boulder. I joined
this project in August 2019 during the
stage when we were sharing complete
graphs of the landslide guide with
stakeholders for review. We were
gathering feedback and making revisions
based on what we heard and I'd like to
give an overview now of this part of the
process. When a draft with the guide was
ready for a review we reach it back out
to the original network of people from
the beginning of the project who were
involved with the stakeholder needs
assessment that Lindsay mentioned. This
group completed more than 15 reviews of
the landside guide. Their feedback helped
verify and improve many aspects of the
guide and that included everything from
scientific information to the mitigation
advice, graphic design, and the
translations between Spanish and English.
One overarching goal of the revision
process was to reduce the amount of text
and communicate the same ideas through
graphics and imagery. These visual aids
help improve understanding and make the
guide more engaging for everyone. They
also make the information more
accessible to low literacy on audiences
including young children and in the
example that you see on the slide we see
pages from the guide which show a before
and after of versions of the pages
for mitigation measures and advice for
preparing an emergency kit or backpack.
The research assistants took the lead on
designing graphical representations of
this kind of information. As we were
putting finishing touches on the
landside guide we started planning ahead
for how we would distribute the guide
both in print and online. We began
developing a communications and outreach
plan well in advance of the expected
release date for the landside guide this
document serves as a hub for the overall
risk communication strategy. We use it in
our team meetings subtract progress
identified gaps and choose our next
steps. A key component is identifying our
audiences which there were many of and
there's a lot of overlap and audiences
listed here with those who are the
collaborators involved from the
beginning of the project. Early on our
strategy for the guide has been to share
it with groups and organizations that
interface directly with communities in
Puerto Rico on a regular basis. So the
guide was designed with both
practitioners and residents in mind the
communications and outreach plan is
vital not only during the planning and
implementation phases but also for
future monitoring and evaluation
purposes of this project. As outlined in
our logic model it will help us report
on how the guide was distributed and
utilized down the road. With the
communications plan we prepared to
publicly release Spanish and English
language versions of the landside guide
to do so. We aligned the communications
workflows at the Natural Hazard Center
and the US Geological Survey. Our partner
Steven Hughes from RPRM had the
chance to do a test launch of sorts on a
Spanish language news show with Ada Monzon
who is one of the most trusted
meteorologists in Puerto Rico this was a
chance for us to practice our message
and see what the reception to the guide
would be like. We received a dozen
requests by email for the guide after
the show which was promising and then a
month later we were able to share the
official launch of the guide with our
digital networks and once again Ada
Monzon was a champion for the land site
guide on social media where she has up
to a million followers. As part of the
communications plan we also created a
spreadsheet to track the many requests
that we received for the landside guide
and to track the distribution of
physical copies of the guide. We started
by printing a thousand copies of the
length of the spanish-language guide in
Puerto Rico and since then the UPRM
team has been distributing physical
copies to our partners. We also asked
partners to share with us how they are
using the guides in their work with
communities and whether physical or
digital copies are preferred. After the
stakeholders have had a chance to use
the guide in education and outreach
activities more we plan to conduct
surveys or interviews to better
understand how the guide was used and
whether the content is appropriate or
needs to be updated and if there are any
additional needs further tools or
content.
Coming back to our roadmap
while the completion and distribution of
a landslide guide appears near the end
it's really the start of another process
that we've been working on which
involves iteration and complementary
tools for landslide risk communication.
So the landslide guide is just the first
product in a diverse array of tools and
activities for communicating landslide
risk. There are some
other complementary tools as you can see
here that have recently been developed
and released to the public on our web
site and these include presentation
slides about landslides and the purpose
of the guide which came at the request
of our partners at the Puerto Rico
Planning Board as well as the San Juan
National Weather Service the Planning
Board plans to use the slides as part of
their trainings for building inspectors.
We have also developed promotional
flyers, presented this work at
conferences, and created scripts that can
be read on the radio. The story map tells
the broader story of landslides in
Puerto Rico by connecting the geospatial
data from the USGS landslide inventory
to the information in the landslide guide
on the website which again is hazards.colorado.edu/puertorico.
You
can also find a newly released animation
that does a great job of explaining the
content of the landside guide and we
continuously collect feedback from our
partners and any of you who are watching
about ways to share this information in
Puerto Rico or other ideas for
additional products that could be made.
And now that Raquel is going to walk you
through two examples of these products
that the team has developed to
complement and build upon the landslide
guide.
And Raquel we can see your screen but
can't quite hear you yet.
Sorry everyone can you hear me now? That
is perfect.
Okay I'm gonna share my screen now.
Wonderful, thank you. Hi everyone
my name is Raquel. First we would like to
take you through a brief example of one
of the complementary products. A policy
available slide deck that helps explain
the content and provide context for the
landside guide. This slide and the next
few slides are a part of the slide deck
available for download on the website.
This slide deck is beneficial for anyone
that wants to bring this information to
their communities. As mentioned earlier the
guide was created to inform residents
and professionals in Puerto Rico about
landslide risk.
It was also created with the intent to
raise awareness in a simple and
illustrative way about what a landslide
is how to identify them what to do with
your family and property our risk, how to
prepare your emergency backpack, and more.
On this slide we see that the image on
the right shows an example of how
devastating a landslide can be. This
landslide occurred in 2013 in the vagina espana
community in bayamón. It is a recent
example that will be familiar to many
people in Puerto Rico. Several families
were evacuated in the emergency the
causes of this landslide were attributed
to the constant rains that the limestone
tower have received on previous days.
There's a really famous YouTube video
that went viral about these events. Many
of us know this event for the neighbors
calling daddy to evacuate her residence.
The video can be accessed via the
YouTube link at the bottom. And we are
going to show part of it in the next
slide. The duration that we show is about
one minute and as a heads up it may be
loud so you might want to turn down your
volume a little bit.
This slide illustrates the natural
phenomena that can cause landslides on
the left and to the right we see the
human activities that contribute to long
susceptibility. Natural causes can
include saturation of the soil while
human activities might include improper
drainage
on slopes. We also explain some of the
signs that may indicate possible
landslide development which should not
be overlooked. This page of the guide
shows the signs or hints in the natural
environment that indicate that the
terrain is susceptible to landslides. It
helps teach people what to look for
around where they live.
In this image we show the possible signs
of landslides but this time in
infrastructure. We emphasize that it is
important to always be alert to the
signs and you don't not you do not have
to wait to identify them all before
taking action.
In this part we highlight the
recommended medication measures to
follow. It is important to follow these
measures as they can help to reduce
landslide risk, especially of officials
should encourage residents to avoid
making cuts on terrain with steep slopes
because this will help to maintain its
stability and avoid Rock Falls that
could cause car accidents if it is near
the road or loss of residents if it
occurs in a community. If culverts are
not used water will accumulate
supersaturated in the ground and causing
it to lose cohesion and detach easily.
Plants through their roots help provides
the ability to the ground as they
function as networks that keep
everything in place but if we cut down
trees or do not plant the land will not
have the support.
Finally you should always consult a
professional before building.
As with other hazards it is of utmost
importance that all families have their
emergency backpacks and other
preparedness items ready. Here this image
from the guide shows the reader and
example of items that should be included
in your emergency backpack. Of course
each family should also personalize the
pack to fit their needs. For example
during the current pandemic types might
also include masks and hand sanitizer.
For more information access the link
down below www.listo.gov/es
As with the medication practices
discussed the response and recovery is
very important. On the left of the slide
the graphic illustrates what to do
during a landslide even if you cannot
vacate the building in time. The
recommendations on the right indicate
what to do after the landslide event has
occurred. Now we are going to show an
animation made to promote the guide
online through social media.
[Music]
Why this work remains urgent.
The 2020 earthquake sequence in
southwest where Eko also revealed some
of the islands vulnerabilities to
landslides. The earthquakes triggered
Rock Falls and a few major highways
which inhibited movement of people and
emergency services needed amid the
ongoing earthquakes. As you can see in
the photo on the bottom right large
landslides occurred in close proximity
to a school after this event. Houses
across the island are also frequently
constructed in ways that are susceptible
to damage from landslides and
earthquakes. Therefore it remains an
urgent task to improve public awareness
of landslides while strengthening the
network of practitioners and researchers
in Puerto Rico who are committed to
landslide mitigation.
We would like to close by recognizing
and thanking the many contributors and
reviewers of the landslide guide.
And we would like to acknowledge the
generous funding provided by the US
Geological Survey, made possible by the
additional supplemental appropriations
for disaster requirements act 2019, along
with support from the Natural Hazard
Center, NSF, and the San Juan Puerto Rico
Science, Technology and Research Trust.
Thank you for attending our presentation.
791
00:39:55,040 --> 00:40:00,590
As a reminder you can download the
Spanish and English versions of the
landslide guide as well as the other
products discussed hazards.colorado.edu/puertorico
We welcome your
questions and the time we have left or
by email after the talk.
Thank you so much for Raquel and thank you
to all of the other panelists to Yahaira
and Lindsay, Jocelyn and Jonathan. Thank
you for the time effort and care that
you clearly put into this presentation
and thank you also for reserving some
time for questions and so again if
you're out there listening and watching
the webinar please know that you can
either use the Q&A box or the chat box
and I'm going to go ahead and read the
questions out loud for our participants
who are on the telephone and then we'll
turn it back over to our fantastic
panelists. So I'm actually going to start
out with a question from Christa, who
said and another important community to
engage as K through 12 education system
public and private. I understand the
editorial Panama pan America what
panamericana will be releasing soon an
earthquake guide for schools which which
will have a half page dedicated to the
guide. So I'm gonna turn that comment
over to Lindsay Davis because I think
you can speak to the partnerships with
schools and some of the K through 12
efforts that have been ongoing. So
Lindsay you want to take that one. Sure
so I think just in general it was
interesting from the beginning of this
project because I I think being an early
career professional myself it's been fun
to kind of involve students in the
project and so it was actually Stephen
Hughes idea to co-supervise
undergraduate students and that's how
the partnership with UPRM sort of
started. This was just during one of our
stakeholder meetings where I was
reaching out because I had you know been
talking to various people at UPRM but I
think that's ended up being one of the
most beneficial parts of our project is
Racquel and Yahaira have brought an amazing
amount of just depth to this entire
project and it would not have been the
same without the participation of
university counterparts. So that and and
I think that just
you know continuing in those efforts is
going to be great. Did I answer the
question fully. Lindsey I think that is
great and then can you also speak to are
there any other collaborations
specifically with K through people who
are working with K through 12 on the
Iowa and thank you. Um so I would say a
lot of the collaborations specifically
with K through 12 are mostly related to
our work with eco exploratory. 
So as joseline mentioned with Ada Monson
she is the founder of the Science
Museum eco exploratoro and so we've
recently been partnering with them on
various initiatives. So one of those was
that recently both Yahaira and Raquel
were invited presenters and completed a
webinar with them and they'll also be
doing a presentation at a science camp
run by eco exploratoro at the end of
this week. So I think we haven't directly
partnered with K through 12 schools but
through our work with eco exploratoro
and the partnerships that we've formed I
think that's probably the best
representation. Raquel or  Yahara do you
have anything to add about your
experience working with them?
Hi yes it has been amazing working with
eco Exploratorium and we have been very
excited for all the activities we have
done and the webinar that we are going
to do on Friday. Yes and we are very
happy for this opportunity
because our objective is to reach as
many people as possible because we think
this guide is a way to save life.
Wonderful thank you so much I'm going to
move on to Jana's question and Jonathan
I think I'm gonna direct this to you
first. Jana asks can you please
recommend any native especially edible
or medicinal plants that can be planted
to help stabilize slopes in landslide
prone areas and are there specific
planting methods to facilitate success?
That's a fantastic question and
unfortunately I'm not an expert in sort
of the green mitigation solutions
particularly in Puerto Rico. That is
those are activities or those are
mitigation strategies that are used in
other parts of the world but I don't
have specific recommendations to to give.
903
00:45:16,240 --> 00:45:21,650
One thing we can try to do is to
followup with the Department of
Agriculture and any of the extension
offices there to see if they have any
specific recommendations for Puerto Rico.
Wonderful thank you next we have two
questions from Chris Ludwig with the US
Geological Survey. So I'm going to start
with the first and then we'll go to the
second. So the first question is where
else could this process be replicated to
mitigate landslide risk? Is there any
place that is quote unquote primed for
using a similar guide outside of Puerto
Rico and are there plans to work with
these communities? So essentially the
first question is sort of about the
transferability of the guide to other
places and so Lindsey I'm going to turn
it to you first and then see
if you have others that you might
recommend respond to this one. Sure so my
initial thought Chris is that I think
you know along the process of creating
the guide just in some of those meetings
I was connected with people who are
working on similar projects elsewhere in
the world. So for example there's a PhD
student in New Zealand who's working on
similar outreach in I believe Bangladesh
and so we met a couple of times and
discussed ideas in terms of the specific
transfer ability of the landside guide I
think at this point we've worked
particularly hard to make sure that it
was directly suited to Puerto Rico but I
think the process is very transferable.
So in order to make a product that is
specialized to a particular area I think
you can take the framework for example
we referenced those other guides that
had been created in in sort of the
initial stages of this project and then
used that to build off of to make sure
that it was relevant to the areas in
which we were working in Puerto Rico.
I don't know Jocelyn, do you have any
thoughts about having having come from
working with the World Bank on this
topic? Hi
I think. I mean I think I would echo a
lot of what you said. As we often do in
these conversations about risk
communication, we would probably have to
emphasize, yeah exactly as Chris said it,
like that the the process could be
replicated but it might not be a guide
that is arrived at as the product that
is needed in a particular place.
We've been so focused on Puerto Rico in
the scope of this project that we've
just sort of begun to think about where
else kind of within the realm of the US
might have similar needs it's with like
with respect to landslides specifically.
So this isn't it this is Jonathan. Do you
mind if I jump in real quick?
That's a great question Chris and I
think one of the
the reasons that this effort has been
has been I think it's gonna be
successful or or has the appearance of
being effective in Puerto Rico is
because of the frequency of the hazard
there, and the other places that occur to
me where landslides are frequent and
that this might be a place to to
investigate is in recently burned areas
particularly in California and other
western states of the U.S. strikes me as
a possibility. And Chris you're thank
you Jonathan, Jocelyn, and Lindsey for
that follow-up and Chris for everybody
on the phone who can't see the Q&A box.
Chris also asked a second question that
I think you just started to hear the
threads have been answered to about if
one were to use this process for
developing risk communication products
to mitigate risk from other hazards such
as flooding, coastal storm, wildfire, or
multiple hazards compound hazards like
landslides plus for it Game+ planned
emic are there other elements that would
need to be changed and if so how? And so
I'll just I'm going to move on to
Alicia's question next but I am gonna
put a plug in for this wonderful team
that yet another product that they are
working on right now is a scholarly
article which is actually unpacking both
the products that they've created but
also the process which Chris, your
questions are very much about that, so I
hope that that will be a major
breakthrough of this effort which is
really writing down and solidifying this
beautiful collaborative process that you
heard about today. So thank you Chris and
next over to Alicia. She asked what is
the spatial resolution of the landslide
susceptibility map that you showed at
the outset Jonathan? So the spatial
resolution of that susceptibility map if
I've got it correct it was based on a
lidar data set so in essence a
remotely sensed topographic data set. So
the data the the final product itself is
either at
a meter resolution or 10 meter
resolution and unfortunately I don't
have the details right in front of me.
But it's a quite fine scale I guess is
the way I'll say. Thank you Diva said
wonderful work congratulations and asked
how have you seen municipalities
incorporate housing in imminent danger
of landslides into their emergency
response or mitigation planning efforts
and so I think Lindsay and or Jonathan
can you tackle that one please. Yeah
could you look could you repeat that one
more time Lori I just think it's a
long question. Of course so Devo wanted
to know how have you seen municipalities
incorporate housing in imminent danger
of landslides into their emergency
response or mitigation planning efforts?
So thank you that for that
and nice to see you on. I would say the
majority of my experience has been in
the community of Utuado and it
seems like there are different
organizations that are kind of trying to
tease that out either working with the
municipal hazard planning level and/or
the emergency manager himself kind of
going door-to-door. He does a phenomenal
job there and so I think I mean that's
one of the things that's really
difficult right because you know
individual homeowners want this
information but there's also kind of
this this line that we have to be
careful not to cross of giving too
specific of information because every
single person's residence is in a
different location and has all of these
different factors that can't possibly be
addressed in one education campaign
right. So we tend to try to encourage
them to seek professional assistance but
you know on a case by case basis and
that tends to be a little bit difficult
depending on other priorities, you know,
if somebody is kind of trying to recover
from a disaster it's much more
difficult for
to say oh yes I want to send this four
thousand dollars going to get it to your
technical investigation and so I think
one of the things that I've spent a lot
of time talking to emergency managers
about is, you know, how to help guide
individual families through processes
like this. So I'm not sure if that's if
that's answering your question and I
would be thrilled to have a conversation
offline about about that because it's
something that we spend a lot of time
thinking about. Does anybody else on the
team have thoughts about that?
Lindsay, this is Jonathan, I'll only add
and Devo thanks for the question um the
only thing I'll add is that the the
susceptibility map itself was developed
in concert or with consultation to the
Puerto Rico Planning Board and so they
were you know ultimately one of the
stakeholders that was involved with that.
Thank you. So Alicia I know the team
described many partnerships today but
Alicia wanted to know about the
integration of the educational materials
have you also connected with faith-based
organizations with your on-the-ground
partnerships? So I think Lindsay, Jocelyn,
Raquel and Yahaira any
integration with faith-based
organizations you can speak to. Um not so
much from my end I don't Raquel and Yahaira
when you responded after Hurricane Maria
did your groups connect with face both
organizations or do you have any
personal experience with that?
No?
What other thing I will mention is we
have worked with the cultural center in
Utuado but not so much with any
individual faith-based organizations but
I think we would be open to that as a
team.
Wonderful thank you and thank you for
raising the question. Next we have a
question about access and functional
needs. So does the guide take into
consideration the deaf community or
people with access and functional needs?
Jocelyn do you want to talk a little bit
about some of the derivative products
that are audio based. Sure I really
appreciate this question and I think
there's a couple of like levels at which
I could try to answer it but I'd say
that, you know, in the in the way that we
created the guide itself and additional
products so far we've tried to make sure
that the same information could be
conveyed through a variety of mediums. So
visually through text but also through
graphics and imagery but we've also
created the animation which has
currently been released has the same
information like in an audio format
we've also created scripts in spanish in
english that communicate information
about landside risk itself but also
information about how to access the
guide. Those could be read on radio or on
like social media or interviews with
different organizations on the Internet.
So I think in terms of communicating the
information we are we've been doing
arrests so far to continue thinking
about providing the information here so
far in a variety of ways that make it
accessible to folks with different needs.
But I think there's another way of
looking at this question that involves
like does the do the recommendations
themselves in the guide account for
people with different needs and I think
they are generally very broad at this
point but we don't make specific
recommendations about
like folks with limited sight or hearing.
But we do provide information about
different ways that signs of landslides
could be recognized and so many of those
are visual but they also involve like
the sounds that landslides make when
they do happen. We know that they're
often mistaken sometimes for earthquakes
or even just like construction equipment
working. So I'd say those are just some
of the things that we've been thinking
about as we continue this process but we
definitely if any of our attendees have
ideas about how to make information or
the specific recommendations for
mitigation of landslides more accessible
to specific communities, we would
certainly welcome those. Thank you for
this question. Thank You Jocelyn and
thank you to all of the participants on
the webinar. Katie just let me know that
for the first time ever we had almost a
hundred percent participation rate in
terms of who signed up for this webinar
and who showed up for it. And so I just I
think this speaks to the power of this
team and thank you to all of our
presenters today. Thank you to our
participants for your questions and
recommendations and I'm sorry that we're
running out of time today but know that
we're going to download the questions
from the chat and Q&A and these five
fantastic presenters will respond and we
will make sure and post those on the
Hazards Center website and so before we
close at the top of the hour in addition
to thanking our panelists and to
thanking all of you for being here
please remember to visit the Hatural
Hazards Center on our website under the
research tab or at hazard.colorado.edu/puertorico
to download the
guide but also all of these supplemental
materials that you heard about today.
It's also on the Natural Hazards website
where you'll be able to find the
recording from this webinar so you can
share it and also share the slides and
where you'll find the answers to your
wonderful questions and comments that
again we will share. Please know that we
will be taking a hiatus
for Making Mitigation Work webinar
series in July as we are going to be
busy hosting our 45th annual but first
ever virtual natural hazards research
and applications workshop. The workshop
will be held July 12 through 15 and we
hope that you will join us. Our theme is
active hope and registration is now open
and the workshop will be followed by a
researchers meeting on July 15th and
16th where the focus will be the data
revolution ethical imperatives and
methodological considerations.
Registration for this meeting is also
now open. So with that thank you again to
our speakers. Thank you to our
participants and to everyone out there
during this time, this tumultuous time
please remember to take care of yourself
and others. Have a great day bye.
