Co-producing and communicating landslide knowledge for risk-informed urban development in Quito

Landslides are a significant problem in Quito, Ecuador. Over time, hundreds of landslides have been recorded, resulting in many fatalities and economic losses. A team of researchers from several universities in Ecuador and the UK conducted a study to analyse the past and present landslide hazard in Quito and then to assess the likely future hazard for different urbanisation and climate change scenarios. Working with professional engineers, government and civil sector organisations, and the wider public, a multidisciplinary approach was adopted to combine geotechnical, geological and historical data, and apply methods ranging from geotechnical testing to citizen science. The researchers built open-access databases and communicated the results of their study through conferences, lectures, community assemblies and a science outreach website. A new geotechnical database was built by collating data on the soils of Quito from published papers, government reports and dissertations. The geotechnical data was analysed for quality and consistency and statistical distributions of geotechnical parameter values and correlations linking more basic soil parameters to complex ones. These efforts supported probabilistic modelling of slope stability for selected study sites. The geotechnical database and user manual were made freely available on a research repository. The approach to knowledge co-production and communication of databases and research results to partners in the Municipality of Quito and to educational centres has been valuable for raising awareness and understanding of landslide problems in Quito. Building such partnerships was found to be a critical part of the process to ensure that research results are available and relevant for making informed decisions about landslide risk management.