LARAM-Asia Course

International PhD course on "Landslide risk assessment and management in Asia"

LARAM is an International School on "LAndslide Risk Assessment and Mitigation" that was founded on 12th April 2005 by the University of Salerno (www.laram.unisa.it). The School gives training to 40 PhD students, selected every year, from the following fields: Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Engineering Geology or other related studies. The Scientific Committee consists of international experts in the fields of Landslide Risk.
The main objectives of LARAM are:
? to develop high educational interdisciplinary programs for assessing, forecasting and mitigating landslide risk over large areas;
? to promote the creation of "on the job" vocational training programs aimed at solving real landslide risk problems using the most advanced theories and methodologies in the fields of geotechnical engineering, geomechanics, geology, mathematical modelling, monitoring, GIS techniques, etc.
The LARAM School has proven to be a very good concept and since its initiation more than 200 PhD researchers have followed this course. However, the participation from students from Asian countries has always been limited.
The aim of LARAM-ASIA is to establish an annual 2 weeks high-level course for PhD students from Asian countries, with international experts on landslide risk assessment and mitigation as teaching staff, in order to improve research collaboration between Asian researchers and increase interaction with international initiatives.
LARAM Asia is also supported by the EU FP7 SafeLand project. One of the aims of the project is the Harmonisation and development of procedures for quantifying landslide hazard and risk, and the project includes also components related to comparing methods developed in Europe with those in Asia. India and China were selected as countries where interaction should be enforced between European and Asian landslide researchers.

Target audience:
The LARAM-ASIA course is intended for PhD researchers that are carrying out research in the field of landslide hazard and risk assessment. Participants should be registered as PhD student in a University and not have obtained their PhD yet at the time of the course. The participants should have a background in one of the following fields: Geology, Geography, Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Engineering Geology or other Earth Science disciplines. Participants must have a good knowledge of the English language as the course will be conducted in English.

Organization:
LARAM-ASIA is organized by the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection of the Chengdu University of Technology (CDUT-SKLGP) from Chengdu, China. It is co-organized by the University of Salerno (Italy), the United Nations University - ITC School for Disaster Geoinformation Management of the University of Twente, the Netherlands, the International Centre for Geohazards (ICG, NGI, Norway) and the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC, Bangkok, Thailand).

Teaching staff:
The course will be conducted by 10 experts with international reputation, coming from China, Hongkong, Japan, Italy, Norway and the Netherlands.

Location:
The LARAM-ASIA international courses will be conducted in Chengdu, China, with fieldwork in the nearby area where 60000 landslides were generated during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. The LARAM-Asia courses will be organized by the State Key Laboratory on Geohazards Prevention, of Chengdu University of Technology (SKLGP). SKLGP has very good facilities, including lecture rooms, computer rooms, laboratories, and a guesthouse.
Date
The course is organized from 21 November - 2 December 2011
Costs:
Students must pay their own travel to China. Room, meals and local transportation will be paid by the organizing institute SKLGP.

Applications:
The course is open to 30 PhD students, which will be selected from the applications. Applications should be made by filling in the application form, and by providing a summary document of the PhD research and two letters of recommendation.
The deadline for applications is 15 October, and the candidate selection will be announced by 20 October. You can register through the following website: http://www.laram.unisa.it/ or contact directly with course coordinator.
 
Course coordinator:
Miss ZHAO Qin
Tel：+86-18981787057  +86-28-84073193
Email：sklgp2011@gmail.com
Address：
State Key Laboratory on Geohazard Prevention Geoenvironment Protection
Chengdu University of Technology，Chengdu, Sichuan，P.R. China