Monthly Archives: April 2015

Pokhara field trip, March 2015, EPIC Nepal Project

April 24, 2015BlogGeoffroy Leibundgut

EPIC team from the UNIL Risk Analysis group has recently carried out a field trip in Pokhara area, western region of Nepal. The purpose of the visit was to carry on monitoring the three bio-engineering sites using a terrestrial laser scanner. Comparing these LIDAR scans with the April 2014 ones, we expect to demonstrate the efficiency of the bio-engineering solutions along three road segments in terms of erosion/shallow landslide problems mitigation.

Moreover, the team met PhD students of the Economics department of the University of Massachusetts for collaboration on economic survey about comparison between unplanned road and bio-engineering road construction in Nepal.

The team also visited and scanned a larger very active landslide area near Bhatkhola site, one of the surveyed bio-engineering sites (about 25 km south from Pokhara). A road recently constructed in steep slopes above the landslide has generated more structural instabilities than usual. The material, which is going down during the monsoon, seems to have reactivated the large landslide below by eroding its toe. We calculated an increase of the deposit down-stream of about 5 meters between 2014 and 2015. This area is a very interesting case of study combining natural and anthropic triggering phenomenon!

Short course @EGU2015

April 21, 2015BlogAntonio Abellan Fernandez

Hello to everyone,

Our short course at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly entitled “Use of 3D point clouds in Geosciences: Acquisition, Processing and Applications” was very successful and we are very happy about that. The course took place on Monday 13th of April, from 17:30 to 19:30 and was followed by around 50 Early Stage Researchers (see some pictures below). We hope that you all enjoyed, both from the lectures and from the wine and icebreaker 😉

All the best from the conveners of the course: Antonio Abellan, Dario Carrea, Florian Humair, Antoine Guerin, Marc-Henri Derron and Michel Jaboyedoff

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Some other informations about the short course can be found here: http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2015/session/19506

Triste nouvelle (sad news)

April 21, 2015NewsMichel Jaboyedoff

The Risk Analysis Group of ISTE at this very sad to announce the death of:

Le Groupe Risk Analysis à l’immense tristesse de vous faire part du décès de:

Jacques Bechet

Jacques a effectué toutes ses études à l’Université de Lausanne. Il a notamment réalisé son master au sein de notre groupe jusqu’en 2011. Son enthousiasme et son humour nous manqueront énormément.

Il nous a quitté le samedi 28 mars, emporté par une avalanche au Mont Vélan à l’âge de 30 ans. Toutes nos pensées vont à la famille et aux proches de Jacques.

He wrote with his very close friend Julien Duc a paper entitled: Erosion processes in black marl soils at the millimetre scale: preliminary insights from an analogous model, which has been published on the 4 April 2015 in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences journal.

We dedicate this paper to Jacques Bechet, who died in a snow avalanche 3 days after the acceptance of this paper. The content of this paper is an expression of his great ingenuity, curiosity and research spirit he shared with his co-worker Julien Duc.

We will ever remember his enthusiasm!