Shifting ground: Landslide risk mitigation through community-based landscape interventions

Thousands of inhabitants in marginal communities die in landslides every year. Rapid urbanization in mountainous areas, combined with heavier rains associated with climate change, is leading to an increase in fatal landslide events. Landscape architects trained to analyze and intervene in situations with complex natural and social territorial dynamics are in a position to make positive contributions to managing risk in such situations. An ongoing collaboration between landscape architects from Germany and urbanists in Medellin, Colombia, is carrying out a research and implementation proposal to anticipate and mitigate risk in low-income settlements on Medellin's mountainous urban periphery. After a first phase examining the problem on the metropolitan scale and a second phase examining two specific neighbourhoods, they have proposed five pilot projects to test strategies of risk alleviation through monitoring and early warning systems, drainage improvements, micro-farming, slope forestation, and through developing sites with supplied services.