Lecturers
Raisa GRACHEVA, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, PhD, Leading scientific researcher, Russian Federation
Leader of the scientific and organizing committee of the First and Second Caucasus Summer School.
Scientific interests: Mountain soils and ecosystems; catastrophic processes as factors of changes in ecosystems; transformation of mountain land use and implications for human society and environment and soil mapping. Expeditionary research took place in mountain regions of Russia and the world (The Far East, Siberia, the Caucasus, the Appalachians, Stara Planina, mountains of Southeast Asia and elsewhere). Recent scientific interests are the interaction of human society and the environment in the mountains, primarily in the Caucasus.
Dr. Simon ALLEN, University of Geneva and University of Zurich, Senior research associate, Switzerland
Scientific Interests: Mountain geomorphology; flood and mass movement hazard and risk assessment; climate impacts and disasters; disaster risk reduction; climate change adaptation
Lecture summary: In this lecture we will establish the conceptual background for hazard and risk assessment, framing hazard and risk assessment as core components of Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Risk Management and introducing participants to the most important terminology and definitions. We then focus on hazard and risk assessment for floods and landslides as two examples of natural threats that are being exacerbated by climate change in the Caucasus region. Finally, we touch on the concept of synoptic, multi-hazard assessment.
Publications: Raetzo, H., Lateltin, O., Bollinger, D., Tripet, J.P. (2002). Hazard assessment in Switzerland: Codes of Practice for mass movements. Bull Eng Geol Ev 61: 263–268. Allen, S. K., Ballesteros-Canovas, J., Randhawa, S. S., Singha, A. K., Huggel C. and Stoffel, M. (2018). Translating the concept of climate risk into an assessment framework to inform adaptation planning: Insights from a pilot study of flood risk in Himachal Pradesh, Northern India. Environ. Sci. Policy, 87, 1–10, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.05.013
Suren ARAKELYAN, Director, GEORISK Scientific Research Company, CJS, Armenia
Scientific interests: Natural hazard and risk assessment. In the last 20 years, specialized in GIS and remote-sensing applications in the field of environmental protection, assessment, and natural hazard processes monitoring. National expert for several UNDP projects in Armenia.
Lecture summary: The lecture addresses the issue of identification and description of hazardous slope processes in general and gives more detail about landslides. Landslide types and methods of their study, mapping, slope stability calculation, hazard and risk assessment, as well as landslide monitoring are considered.
Publications: Arakelyan, S., Karakhanyan, A., Hovhannesyan, G., Babayan, H., Baghdasaryan, H., Gevorgyan, M., Arakelyan, A., Igityan, H., Babayan, S., (2019). GIS-based multi-risk assessment of potential losses and impact to key infrastructure induced by an earthquake scenario in the City of Kapan, Armenia. Proceedings of the Second Caucasus Mountain Forum, Caucasus Regional Research Agenda: Key to Sustainable Regional Development, 30 November to 1 December 2019, Ankara, Turkey; Karakhanian, A., Trifonov, V., Philip, H., Avagyan, A., Hessami, Kh., Jamali, F., Salih Bayraktutan, M., Bagdassarian, H., Arakelian, S., Davtian, V., & Adilkhanyan, A. (2004). Active faulting and natural hazards in Armenia, Eastern Turkey, and Northwestern Iran, Tectonophysics, 380 (3-4), 189-219, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2003.09.020
Hasan Nüzhet DALFES, Professor (retired), Turkey
Scientific Interests: Climate, paleoclimate and climate change for over 40 years. Researcher in the Dynamic Meteorology Laboratory in France and the TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center. Served in many administrative and academic positions in departments dealing with informatics and earth sciences. Currently working, amongst many other projects, on establishing a citizen-science-based phenology observation network (TRfeno) and a phenocam system in Turkey.
Lecture summary: Climate change, whether ‘natural’ or ‘anthropogenic’, changes the probabilities of extreme events, which in turn can induce (mostly nonlinearly) disturbances to the physical environment and therefore to ecosystems. The lecture will discuss issues related to the predictability and spatial/temporal scales of events.
Natavan JAFAROVA, Ph.D. in Geography Science, Lecturer, Baku State University, Senior Science Researcher at the Institute of Geography, ANAS, Azerbaijan
Scientific interests: GIS technology, remote sensing, social-economic geography, disaster risk management.
Lecture summary: GIS, ecology mapping, social-economic science. Research activities concern the analysis of settlements and socioeconomic situation of regions, as well as the study of impacts of disasters and natural risks through GIS technologies. Mapping of social and economic impacts and consequences of the flooding in the Kura-Aras region, and the impact of natural disasters on resettlement in the Lankaran-Astara region.
Publications: Studying the impact of the floods of the Kura River on inhabited and industrial points by using modern technologies; The role of tourism in the socio-economic development of mountain rural areas of Azerbaijan (on the example of Guba and Gusar districts); Economic and social problems of war zone settlements of the Goranboy administrative region of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
Paweł KROH, Ph.D., Institute of Geography, Pedagogical University of Krakow, Poland
Scientific Interests: Landslides in the Carpathian Mountains, their origin, mechanisms, and distribution, as well as paleoclimate and paleogeomorphogenetic process records in landslide forms and sediments; geomorphological development and periglacial morphology in dry climate mountains in Middle Asia; and geoinformation solutions in mountain rescue applications.
Lecture summary: Landslides are one of the main geohazards in Poland. The first part of the lecture will present an overview of the landslide phenomenon as well as systems and solutions on the national level that lead to minimizing landslide problems for society. The second part presents results of research showing methodological challenges with discrete element method (DEM) interpretations for landslide delimitation and mapping. Main research directions focused on landslides in Polish science will be noted at the end.
Publications: Kroh, P. (2017). Analysis of land use in landslide-affected areas along with the Łososina Dolna Commune, the Outer Carpathians, Poland. Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk, 8(2), 863-875; Kroh, P., Struś, P., Wrońska-Wałach, D., & Gorczyca, E. (2019). Map of landslides on the commune scale based on spatial data from airborne laser scanning. Carpathian Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences, 14(1).
Andrey MEDVEDEV, Ph.D. in Geography, Head of the Department of Cartography and Remote Sensing of the Earth, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of the Sciences, Russian Federation
Scientific interests: Cartography, geoinformatics and multimedia technologies as well as their application in various scientific disciplines. Specialization on the development of new methods in the field of visualization and organization of heterogeneous spatial data. Developing approaches to constructing tactile and sound maps for the blind and visually impaired. Cooperating with specialized institutions for people with visual impairments. On the basis of developments in this area, published the monograph "Creation of Tactile and Typhlographic Maps".
Lecture summary: Online mapping has undergone significant changes over the past 10 years among remote sensing, photogrammetric, and computer vision specialists. This lecture will address technical challenges facing online mapping and hazard monitoring. One of the main issues is how best to obtain reliable, highly accurate spatial data. Satellite information, which is becoming more readily available every year, has become an online reality today. If we had to wait for several days to get the most up-to-date image of a territory a few years ago, today it is ready in hours. Due to satellite constellations, we get fresh data every day at different spatial resolutions.
Publications: Medvedev, A., Telnova, N., Alekseenko, N., Koshkarev, A., Kuznetchenko, P., Asmaryan, S., Narykov, A. (2020), UAV-Derived Data Application for Environmental Monitoring of the Coastal Area of Lake Sevan, Armenia with a Changing Water Level, Remote Sensing, 12 (3821). DOI: 10.3390/rs12223821; Nefedova, T.G., & Medvedev, A.A. (2020). Shrinkage of the developed space in Central Russia: population dynamics and land use in rural areas. Regional Research of Russia, 10(4), 549–561. DOI: 10.1134/S2079970520040073; Hovsepyan, A., Tepanosyan, G., Muradyan, V., Asmaryan, S., Medvedev, A., Koshkarev, A. (2019). Lake Sevan shoreline change assessment using multi-temporal Landsat images, Geography, Environment, Sustainability, 2(4), 212–229.
Dr. Anna SCOLOBIG, University of Geneva, Senior research associate, Switzerland
Scientific interests: Societal impacts of climate and environmental change; risk perception, preparedness, social vulnerability and capacity building; communication and responses to climate risk; co-design of adaptation strategies; risk policy and decision-making processes; integrated disaster risk management; people-centred early warning systems; inter and trans-disciplinary research.
Lecture summary: In recent years, disasters including the COVID-19 pandemic have accounted for thousands of deaths, severe economic consequences and significant disruption to human development all over the world. To address the root causes of these disasters, reduce their impacts, respond to them, and be prepared for future crises, it is essential to enhance disaster risk management capacities and increase societal resilience. This lecture will describe the key principles in disaster risk reduction, integrated management and decision-making and will present the key transformations in the approaches adopted over the past two decades. Critical challenges for transferability of disaster risk knowledge, capacities and innovation across the world will also be discussed.
Publications: Casajus Valles, A., Marin Ferrer, M., Poljanšek, K., Clark, I. (eds.), Science for Disaster Risk Management 2020: Acting today, protecting tomorrow. EUR 30183 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2020, doi:10.2760/571085, JRC114026; Scolobig, A., Prior, T., Schröter, D., Jörin, J., Patt, A. (2015), “Towards people-centred approaches for effective disaster risk management: balancing rhetoric with reality”, International Journal for Disaster Risk Reduction 12: 202-212.
Lasha SUKHISHVILI, Ph.D., Head of the Department of Geography, Institute of Earth Sciences & NSMC, Ilia State University, Georgia
Scientific interests: Geomorphology, remote sensing, hydrology, GIS
Lecture summary: Study area characteristics of the Tbilisi area: From the source of natural hazards to urban disasters.
Publications: Sukhishvili, L., Forte, A., Merebashvili, G., Leonard, J., Whipple, K., Javakhishvili, Z., ... Godoladze, T. (2021). Active deformation and Plio-Pleistocene fluvial reorganization of the western Kura fold-thrust belt, Georgia: Implications for the evolution of the Greater Caucasus Mountains. Geological Magazine, 158(4), 583-597. doi:10.1017/S0016756820000709
Mustafa Hakan YIĞITBAŞIOĞLU, Prof. Dr., Retired from Ankara University, Geography Department, Turkey
Scientific interests: Geomorphology, environmental problems, climate change, paleoclimatology.
Lecture summary: In this lecture, differences between natural events and natural hazards and the conditions under which natural hazards will be called disasters or catastrophes will be discussed.
Publications: Yiğitbaşıoğlu, H., Dean, J.R., Eastwood, W.J., Roberts, N., Jones, M.D., Leng M.J. (2015) A 600-year-long drought index for Central Anatolia, J. Black Sea/Mediterranean Environment, Special Issue: 84-88; Eastwood, W.J., Gümüşcü, O., Yiğitbaşıoğlu, H., Haldon, J.F., England, A. Integrating Palaeoecological and Archaeo-Historical records: Land use and Landscape change in Cappadocia (Central Turkey) since late Antiquity (2009). Archaeology of the Countryside of Mediaval Anatolia, Ed: T. Vorderstrase & J. Rodenberg, PIHANS, 113.