8th International Conference Debris Flows

Water Management of Georgian Technical University, Ecocenter for Environmental Protection and the Debris Flow Association invite you and your colleagues to participate in the 8th Conference “Debris Flows: Disasters, Risk, Forecast, Protection”, which will be held on October 6-10, 2025, in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Debris flows in mountainous regions cause significant damage to the economy and often lead to casualties among the population. Since the middle of the 19th century, individual cases of debris flows were studied in Georgia, debris flow hazard maps and debris flow zoning were created, stationary studies were conducted on control watersheds, experiments on debris flow reproduction in a special flume were carried out, debris flow protection structures were developed and constructed.

To solve the debris flow problem, cooperation of experts from different countries is required. One of the forms of such cooperation is the conferences “Debris flows: disasters, risk, forecast, protection”. The conference in Georgia is the eighth and continues a series of conferences held in Pyatigorsk (2008), Moscow (2012), Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (2014), Irkutsk and Arshan (2016), Tbilisi (2018), and Dushanbe and Khorog (2020; due to pandemic held in a reduced correspondence format), Chengdu (2024).

The conference will be held in the year of the 200th anniversary of the founder of debris flow science Boleslaw Statkowski (1825-1898), the first researcher of debris flows in the Caucasus.
The conference is being held with the participation of Georgia state agencies, institutes and universities from several countries.
The conference sessions will be followed by a two-day field seminar on debris flow basins in Georgia.

The conference focuses on but is not limited to the following topics:

• Regional distribution patterns and impacts of debris flow disasters
• Formation mechanism of debris flow hazards
• Debris flow hazards related to glacial lakes
• Observation and modeling of debris flow hazards
• Monitoring, early warning, and prediction of debris flow hazards
• Risk assessment and disaster mitigation of debris flow
• Disaster chains of landslides and debris flows
• Schools and traditions of debris flow science

• Plenary presentations
• Oral presentations
• Poster presentations
• Discussions
• Field seminar in debris flow catchments of Georgia