Title: Hydrogeomorphological processes and sedimentation also reflect another great global crisis. Examples of incremental denudation in the Eastern Cordillera, Colombia
Abstract:
The episodic, concatenated and recurrent exogenous geodynamism is analyzed here, which since the 90's produces severe damages and losses in lives, property and the environment in the Colombian Andean block.
This is supported by master's thesis, geological consultancies, intervention to studies of local and regional zoning of natural hazards, advice on urban projects, technical concepts for entire neighborhoods or small private properties, and numerous visits with public officials and first responders to attend to emergencies in about twenty municipalities of seven departments.
The interpretation of hydroclimatological data, official and journalistic reports, and inventories of mass movements (MM), indicate extreme meteorological events of high intensity-duration-persistence and concentrated in certain hydrographic basins of the Eastern Cordillera. Meteors and rain shadows on its mountain slopes triggered multiple convulsive and reactive MM: landslides dominate (translational and laminar, with few rotational ones; rocky blocks and wedge-shaped), followed by flows (muddy and creep, long-term, extensive and damaging in Santanderes and Boyacá departments; very fast debris flows, many channeled and others diluted downhill; frictional and earth granular flows, in the case of Utica, Cundinamarca), rock-falls, etc. Its impact was maximized in cathment zones covered by montane forest, which contributed solid flows with huge volumes of biomass and trapped air cushions, generating in turn extraordinary related torrentiality (eg Mocoa-Putumayo, Forencia-Caquetá). In addition, 2.5x109 m3 of sediments were contributed only by MM towards the Las Ceibas river basin, between 1997-2010, being a multidisciplinary alert bell, with strong socio-environmental and inter-institutional implications, which are explained here.
Biography:
Germán Reyes-Mendoza is a colombian geologist (1996), consultant on applied geosciences, disaster risk management and land use planning in tripartite public entities in Colombia and engineering companies; FAO ex-adviser. Has completed his research stages in disaster prevention and contingency plans (scholarship by the IILA-MAE Italian government, 1998). Posgraduate studies in environmental law (Universidad del Rosario, 2002). MSc in geology (specialty geomorphology) from the Barcelona and Autónoma de Barcelona Universities (UB & UAB, 2010); PhD(c) in Earth Sciences from UB. He has published some books on the environment, natural hazards, urban geology and social appropriation of knowledge. Guest teacher from public and private universities (undergraduate and master programs), and lecturer in specialized courses in Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico.
