New Technologies in Geo-Hazards Analysis, Hydrogeology and River Restoration

Dear Colleagues,

Strong societal pressures are now seeking to restore balance to environments that have been destabilized by many years of poor practices in valley bottoms, geological subsoil, and slopes. The task is enormous to put back into good order watersheds that are increasingly frequented and inhabited but also subject to risks linked to the disharmony between society and nature. The scientific community, whether from the hydro-geosciences or the social sciences, is very involved in these issues, which concern the analysis of geo-hazards, hydrogeology, and river restoration. This is helped by the global context: landslides are recurrent in the world, causing many serious events every year; groundwater is facing serious pollution problems (water quality), as well as serious scarcity problems, both in cities and in the countryside (water quantity); riverbeds have never been as much of an issue as they are today, as many countries want to reverse the centuries-old trend of damming and enclosing rivers by renaturation or rewilding while limiting flood risk.

The consideration of natural risks and their management on a watershed scale require a good understanding of not only physical but also human processes. More and more, the populations are asked to give their opinion on the way to manage their territory, which can influence the main orientations of the restoration works, whether it is about the slopes, the subsoil, or the rivers. Solving major environmental issues requires technological development, which includes the renewal of conceptual approaches, development of new methods, and the formalization of new societal paradigms, fully embodying what the population living in the watershed wants today and tomorrow.

The Special Issue New Technologies in Geo-Hazards Analysis, Hydrogeology, and River Restoration intends to echo this state of ongoing research, concerned both with technical progress but also listening to societal expectations, by answering three questions: (i) What are the new concepts, methods and techniques (field measurements, geomatics, modeling, etc.) to better understand the functioning of slopes, subsoil waters, and alluvial plains, separately and/or in combination? (ii) How can these new scientific contributions help to reduce the risk of floods, water shortages, pollution, and landslides, in order to bring environments more in line with sustainable development expectations? (iii) How can these new technologies proposed by researchers be used and integrated by watershed managers to improve bio-hydro-morpho-ecological conditions and human/nature harmonization?

In this Special Issue, we invite authors to submit original research papers, reviews, and viewpoint articles related to recent advances at all levels of the applications and technologies of geo-hazards analysis, hydrogeology, and river restoration. We are particularly interested in presenting emerging technologies related to coupled or separate approaches that may have a significant impact on this research field. We are open to papers addressing a broad range of topics, from foundational topics regarding theoretical issues of hydro-geo-hazards to novel algorithms improving classical vision problems, advanced and technological systems for interesting applications, and innovative approaches from the perspective of a coupled or separate approach to environmental restoration.

Topics of interest for this Special Issue dealing with geo-hazard analysis, hydrogeology, and river restoration include (but are not limited to):

• New mapping techniques;
• Machine learning, deep learning, and artificial intelligence;
• New methods for automatic extraction of environmental data from images;
• Three-dimensional imaging, analysis, and applications;
• Design, acquisition, analysis, processing, and perspective of field data;
• Ecology, hydrology, hydraulics, geomorphology, geology, hydrogeology, sedimentology, and geochemistry;
• Water quality and water resources;
• Sediment budgets and water balance;
• River rehabilitation and river conservation;
• Managing sediment (dis)connectivity in watersheds;
• Natural risks and technological risks;
• Environment and risk management;
• Environmental dynamics, behavior, trajectory, and event analysis using imagery, statistics, and modeling;   
• Environmental governance and education;
• Human impacts on river systems, slopes, and subsoils;
• Participatory science;
• Quantification of physical and/or human processes;
• Combined analysis of quantitative and qualitative data;
• Multi-criteria and multi-disciplinary data analysis;
• Decision support;
• New methods for annual tracking of changes
• Management, use and development of large databases;
• Geohistory and environmental restoration;
• Spatialization and temporality;
• Trend vs. catastrophism vs. uniformitarism.

Prof. Dr. Gilles Arnaud-Fassetta
Guest Editor

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