In the past decades, geo-disasters triggered by earthquake, landslide, debris flow, tsunami, and volcanic eruption frequently occurred all over the world, especially in Asia. These disasters caused great loss of human life as well as huge damage on infrastructure and property. As disasters are serious threats to the human society, reduction of geo-disasters has become an urgent and critical issue for the safety of communities and their economic development.
As an initiative from Asia to reduce the geo-disasters, on 4 September 2013, ICGdR was officially registered in Shimane Prefecture with the approval of the Japanese government (Formal Name in Japanese ：特定非営利活動法人国際地盤災害軽減機構 ).
Before the official establishment of the ICGdR, the core members have conducted preparatory ac- tivities for 10 years. In 2003, the first symposium was held at Kanazawa University, Japan for the mitigation of geo-disasters in the areas around Japan Sea. This pioneering event drew attention of researchers and engineers from China, Korea and Japan. The second, third and fourth symposia were also held at Kanazawa University. Then, the fifth and sixth symposia were held in Xi’an and Kunming in China, respectively. In 2009 the symposium was renamed as “The International Symposium on Mitigation of Geo-disasters in Asia” (MGDA) to include more countries and cov- er larger area, and the seventh event was held in Harbin, China. The Eighth and Ninth symposia were held in Vladivostok, Russia in 2010, and Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2011, respectively. Grad- ually, the event evolved from a regional meeting to a regular international conference. In 2012, Shimane University, Japan organized the tenth event of the symposium, and about 100 partici- pants attended this event. During the symposium, a field trip from Sendai, via Hotaka and Kyoto, to Matsue was made to investigate the disasters caused by earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and landslides. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the continuous event, the core members collab- orated to publish “The Progress of Geo-disaster Mitigation Technology in Asia” with Springer to show the progress of geo-disaster mitigation technologies in Asia. In this symposium, most of the participants showed an intent to establish an international consortium on geo-disaster reduction. In May 2013, the organizing meeting of the International Consortium on Geo-disaster Reduction (ICGdR) was held in China Institute of Disaster Prevention, Beijing, China. Then, the legal regis- tration was completed in September 2013 in Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture, Japan.
In 2013, the 11th MGDA symposium was successfully held in Kathmandu, Nepal. Because the importance of geo-disaster reduction for the Nepalese society, the Nepalese prime minister at- tended this event signifying the great importance of an active and application oriented research on geoenvironmental hazards.
Accompanying to the legal registration of ICGdR, the symposium was officially renamed as “In- ternational Symposium on Geo-disaster Reduction (ISGdR)”, and kept the number continually. It is a great step for ICGdR conducting its activity from Asia to the whole world.
The 12th to 15th ISGdRs were held in Fullerton (California, USA, 2014), Prague (Czech Repub- lic, 2015), Chengdu (China, 2016), and Oki Islands – Matsue – Kyoto (Japan, 2017). The route crossed America,Europe and Asia. This makes ICGdR as a real international organization.
After that, the 16th and 17th ISGdR were held in France and Kyrgyz in 2018 and 2019, respec- tively. Participants enjoyed the face to face meeting, and the field trip under blue sky and sun- shine. However, because of the pandemic of Covid-19, the 18th ISGdR held in Beijing in 2020 only had the Chinese participants on-site, and all of the other participants from other countries attended on-line. 2020 is a hard year for the human beings. It is also a hard year for ICGdR. The 19th ISGdR was jointly organized with the High-Level Academic Forum on Disaster Mitigation and Integrated Risk Defense on the Plateau, on 12-15 July 2021, in Xining, China. The event was held partially online and partially on site. 20th ISGdR was back to Kanazawa in 2022, the original position of ISGdR. A large plan was made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the event. Howev- er, because of the Covid-19, only the Japanese delegates could attend on person, and the others still could only participate on-line. The 21st ISGdR was held in Shanghai in 2023. Delegates from USA, Japan, Nepal and other countries attend. It is a new start of the event after the Covid-19. In July 2024, the 22nd ISGdR was held in Salerno, Italy. More than 80 participants from more than 8 countries attended this event. The numbers of participants and nations recovered to its normal situation, eventually.
Besides, a training course for landslide disaster reduction was organized by Taiwan University in Chinese Taipei from 2013 yearly. The course focused on advanced technology of hazard as- sessment and mitigation of landslide and debris flow hazards with lectures and practices. Another training course on earthquake disaster reduction has also been conducted in China Institute of Disaster Prevention since 2014. After that, different kinds of the training courses have been con- ducted in different places for different topics, and contributed to the society in different respects.
In 2014, with the cooperation from Springer, ICGdR launched its official journal, Geoenviron- mental Disasters. It is an open-access journal. ICGdR supports all of the APC (article processing charge). In 2018, it is included in SCOPUS; In 2021, it is included in ESCI, and GEO Base of Engineering Village.
In January 2018, cooperating with Shimane University, Japan, “UNESCO Chair on Geoenvi- ronmental Disaster Reduction” was established. The main purpose is to improve the relationship between environment and society. Based on the excellent work accomplished, the renewal of the agreement on the UNESCO Chair was approved in 2022 for four years, to 20 February 2026.
With firm foundation from past preparatory activities, the ICGdR is devoted actively to reduce geo-disasters in populated areas and make a positive contribution for communities and human society especially in vulnerable areas of geo-disasters.