Proceedings of the Second World Landslide Forum – 3-7 October 2011, Rome Baolin Wang (1) , Mario Ruel (2) , Réjean Couture (1) , Doug VanDine (3) , Peter Bobrowsky (1) , Andrée Blais-Stevens (1) Current Status of Landslide Guidelines around the World (1) Geological Survey of Canada, 601 Booth St., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0E8, 1-613-992-8323 (2) CN Rail, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (3) VanDine Geological Engineering Limited, Victoria, BC, Canada Abstract The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) initiated a project in 2009 to develop national landslide guidelines and best practices as part of its natural hazard loss reduction effort. This project is part of the International Program on Landslides sponsored by the International Consortium on Landslides. A literature review was carried out as part of this project. More than 30 landslide guidelines from around the world were collected. This paper presents a brief review of these guidelines. The review will assist in the development of the GSC’s landslide guidelines, as well as aid professionals and other stakeholders who wish to learn more about or develop their own landslide guidelines. Keywords landslide, guidelines, review Introduction Thousands of landslides occur annually in Canada and on average about four lives have been claimed by landslides each year over the past 150 years (Clague and Bobrowsky, 2010; Evans, 1999). In May 2010, a landslide in the province of Quebec claimed the lives of a family of four. In Canada, landslide damage to infrastructure and secondary losses are estimated to exceed $200 million annually (Clague and Bobrowsky, 2010). A project was initiated at the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in 2009 to develop national landslide guidelines and best practices. It is part of GSC’s natural hazard loss reduction effort. Development of landslide guidelines has been identified as one of the most valuable methods of landslide loss reduction. Similar to other sciences and technologies, knowledge of landslides has advanced exponentially in the past few decades. In other scientific and engineering disciplines, technical guidelines have helped raise standards of practice and have undoubtedly contributed to increased quality and consistency of professional practice. There are currently no national landslide guidelines in Canada to assist and guide professionals. Although landslide guidelines exist in some provinces, they are limited to specific issues or for specific regions or industries. Landslide guidelines available from other countries are not necessarily directly applicable in Canada given physiographic, geological, climatic, and cultural differences. Nonetheless, such domestic and international documents are useful to help develop Canadian guidelines. Thus a literature review was carried out on more than 30 guidelines that were collected from 10 countries around the world and two international/multi- national bodies. Most guidelines reviewed were published in English; some were in French. There are other landslide guidelines written in other languages that are not included in this review. This paper presents a brief review of the collected guidelines. The purpose is to aid in the development of the GSC’s landslide guidelines and to assist other stakeholders who wish to learn more about or to develop and/or tailor their own landslide guidelines. Collection of the guideline documents A literature search was carried out to collect as many documents related to landslide guidelines as possible. Table 1 is a summary list of the collected guidelines. Although every effort was made for the collection to be as complete as possible, some guidelines may have been missed, especially those not in English or French. It should be noted that some of the guidelines that were reviewed are not specific to landslides, but provide useful reference/guidance for landslide loss reduction, e.g., ISO (2009) and Read and Stacey (2009).