Kyoto 2020 Commitment

The 2017 Ljubljana Declaration on landslide risk reduction (Sassa 2017a) proposing the Kyoto 2020 Commitment (2018c) to be launched during the Fifth World Landslide Forum in Kyoto, Japan, in 2020 (Sassa 2018b) was adopted by the participants (Sassa 2017b) of the Fourth World Landslide Forum (Mikos et al. 2017) following the high-level panel discussion: Strengthening intergovernmental network and the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) for ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025 for global promotion of understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk (Sassa 2015).

In order to prepare the Kyoto 2020 Commitment (KC 2020), ICL took some actions in the past and is taking several actions at present.

  1. 1.

    Development of ICL Journal Landslides from bimonthly publication to monthly publication (Sassa 2018a). Monthly journal will work as a newsletter for the common platform of the Kyoto 2020 Commitment.

  2. 2.

    ICL created a new category of articles in Landslides, “News/Kyoto Commitment for a newsletter function and a new platform to disseminate the progress of priority actions proposed in the zero draft of KC2020 (Sassa 2018c).

  3. 3.

    ICL created a new membership category—ICL associates with the membership fee of 20% of the full membership fee to expand the ICL network for the KC 2020.

  4. 4.

    ICL associates, ICL supporters, ICL full members as well as members of IPL Global Promotion Committee and members of ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships are invited to contribute to the new category of News/Kyoto Commitment for its success.

Modification of instruction for authors in Landslides

The Editorial Board of Landslides has modified the current categories of papers for Landslides as described below.

New categories and the expected page number for each category and explanation are explained below.

  1. 1.

    Original papers (less than 12 pages): Original scientific research and investigation

  2. 2.

    Review papers (less than 12 pages): Review of current research and development of technology in a thematic area of landslides

  3. 3.

    Recent Landslides (2–10 pages): Information of recent landslides such as areal/ground photos, location (Longitude and Latitude), occurrence date, magnitude (area and volume), velocity/travel distance, categories of material and movement, plan and section, and information of disasters/socio-economic impact within available extent. The page number was changed from 2–6 pages to 2–10 pages to include a very short news (2 pages) of recent landslides for quick information for readers and promote further investigation and research and also a long investigation report (10 pages) of recent landslides with enough field investigation and analysis.

  4. 4.

    Technical Notes (4–8 pages): Research/technologies/reviews/case studies/practices which will contribute to landslide disaster risk reduction other than the previous three categories. The number of pages was changed from 2–6 pages to 4–8 pages because many accepted papers are more than 6 pages long.

  5. 5.

    IPL/WCoE Activities (4–8 pages): Progress or achievement of the projects of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) and the World Centres of Excellence on Landslide Risk Reduction (WCoEs), and other research activities of IPL. This category was changed from ICL/IPL activities (less than 6 pages) to IPL/WCoE activities (4–8 pages). IPL Global Promotion Committee approves the new IPL project proposals through an extensive technical evaluation process and also approves the ongoing status of current IPL projects at the IPL Global Promotion Committee meeting every year. Currently, there are 54 IPL projects in 23 countries with ongoing status in 2018. IPL Global Promotion Committee adopts new World Centres of Excellence on Landslide Risk Reduction (WCoEs) during the World Landslide Forum every three years. At present, there are 20 organizations that are identified as the WCoE 2017–2020. The progress and the achievement of IPL projects and WCoEs and also any other activities contributing to the IPL will be published in this category.

  6. 6.

    News/Kyoto Commitment (less than 4 pages): News and all categories of articles promoting the Kyoto 2020 Commitment for global promotion of understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk in progress (Landslides Vol.15 (3) 389–392) will be published under this category. It is planned to serve as a newsletter and a common platform and database of information of KC2020. Expected all partners of KC2020 are requested to contribute their activities. KC2020 is still in the zero draft stage. It will be a draft at ICL-IPL Conference in Kyoto, Japan, in December 2018. It is expected to be finalized at ICL-IPL Conference at UNESCO in November 2019. Then, it is planned to circulate it to potential partners for signing. The final launching is planned at the Fifth World Landslide Forum 2020 in Kyoto, Japan. Expected partners include 22 signatory organizations of ISDR-ICL Sendai partnerships 2015–2025, ICL full members, ICL supporters, ICL associates, and other entities which support KC2020 intellectually, practically, and financially.

Note for the authors:

Page number mentioned above refers to the number of pages printed in Landslides. One printed page contains 7,000 characters. Please check the space for figures and tables in printed page before submission (3 figures / tables will be printed in one page, for rough estimation).

Active editors and reviewers successfully working in 2017

No. 1–No. 6 issues of Vol. 14 of Landslides (total 2180 pages) were published in 2017 with extensive voluntary supports from the following 92 editors (Table 1) and 335 reviewers (Table 2) from various fields related to landslides worldwide. The Editorial Board of Landslides sincerely extends its appreciation to all editors and reviewers working throughout 2017, listed in Tables 1 and 2, for their timely and valuable editorial works that contributed to the development of landslide science for landslide disaster risk reduction.