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More and more natural disasters are being reported worldwide, particularly with respect to landslides. They cause injuries and deaths and induce physical, environmental and economic damages that hamper the development of wealthy as well as poor countries and regions. It is therefore necessary to include consideration of landslide hazards in land use and emergency response planning for public safety and realization of safe engineering projects. It is essential for authorities to have appropriate maps describing hazardous areas at their disposal. It is also important that they are aware of the different steps within a coherent approach that lead to the identification of landslide areas, the evaluation of the corresponding hazards, and the assessment of the risks these assessments imply. A large number of distinctive methods for landslide hazard mapping have been tested and applied in different contexts for more than 30 years. Many of them have been presented in recent international conferences such as the International Symposium on Landslides (Rio de Janeiro, 2004), the International Conference on Landslide Risk Management (Vancouver, BC, 2005), or the International Forum on Landslide Disaster Management (Hong Kong, 2007), all of them organized under the auspices of the JTC-1, the joint ISSMGE, IAEG and ISRM Technical Committee on Landslides and Engineered Slopes. The JTC-1 recognizes that there is a need for unified terminology in susceptibility, hazard and risk zoning, so that zoning in any area could be compared on a similar basis with zoning of adjacent areas, and to insure that fundamental assessment steps are properly considered and applied in the management of landslide-prone areas. JTC-1 also recognizes that the time has now been reached when quantitative hazard and risk zoning is possible. With this in mind, JTC-1 appointed a Scientific Committee to undertake the development of guidelines for landslide susceptibility and hazard and risk zoning for land use planning with the requirement that the committee produce guidelines that are acceptable to the international community. A first draft in this complex process was developed by the Scientific Committee using as a starting point a document prepared by the Australian Geomechanics Society. This draft was discussed and its applicability was tested within an international group of 40 experts (listed at the end of the preface) most of whom met for a workshop in Barcelona from September 18 to 20, 2006. This very fruitful workshop proved to be a forum for vigorous debate, and many helpful suggestions arose on how to improve the guidelines. Many of these suggestions have been included in the Commentary appended to the Guidelines. There were numerous additional suggestions (which were not included in the interest of balance and because of space restrictions) and a large number of formal corrections that were important to improve the quality of the guidelines. A set of accompanying papers have been also included in this special issue of Engineering Geology. These pa...

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The Island of 'La Désirade' is severely affected by rock falls. One house located in the area of 'Le Souffleur' was partly destroyed by blocks in 1997, with two people injured. About 50 people still live under a dangerous cliff along the road from Beauséjour to Baie-Mahault, the two main villages of this eastern end of Guadeloupe archipelago. The first solution proposed by the state based on relocation of few houses was faced to population hostility. Solutions had to be reshaped and designed based on a global assessment of the different hazards affecting the Island (earthquakes, cyclones, flooding), on protection works taking into account the fact that French regulation prohibits new constructions behind protection fences, and on global and local land-use development. Risk management process has included technical analysis, social behaviour, cultural heritage of building and development, responsibility and regulation, short-term and long-term financing, land-use development strategy as well as information and communication. The solutions that are now being implemented seem to give satisfaction to all the partners. This example of landslide risk management carried out in La Désirade is discussed in this paper.