SGL Team Members Present at AGU23

San Francisco, CA-

Two SGL students from the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University, presented their team’s research poster this week at the American Geophysical Union (AGU23) Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. Billy Hernawan and Juan Pablo Alvarado Franco presented their team’s work titled ‘Probabilistic Offshore Landslides Hazard Mapping: Integrating Observations, Models and Experts’ Knowledge through a Bayesian Framework,’ within the Natural Hazard subtopic. This work was co-authored by their PhD advisor Dr. Zenon Medina-Cetina, and by former SGL member Dr. Patricia Varela.

The main findings of the poster presented a Bayesian Framework, as a systematic way to integrate sources of evidence to calibrate the parameters of a landslide forward model (infinite slope). With submarine landslides acting as a major geological threat affecting underwater infrastructure and coastal communities, the type of site characterization evidence and its amount in the form of physical observations, play an important role in the production of landslide hazard maps. The Bayesian probabilistic calibration developed by Dr. Medina-Cetina’s team, produces more certain model predictions in the form of probability density functions, and can be updated when new evidence becomes available. Reducing further the uncertainty of the model predictions.

AGU, established in 1919, is a global community supporting more than half a million advocates and professionals in the Earth and space sciences, covering disciplines from Atmospheric Sciences, Natural Hazards, to Global Environmental Change. The conference is being held until the 15th of December and brings together more than 25,000 attendees to explore how Science Leads the Future. (www.agu.org)

“The conference brings together researchers from all over the globe to share their most recent work on anything related to geo research. Our work represents a breakthrough in hazard assessment.” Said Hernawan, who also mentioned that it was beneficial to learn about what others are doing within the natural hazard division and the geo field research.

You can learn more about Hernawan and Alvarado’s work by checking out the SGL website or reaching out to them via LinkedIn.