Varnes Medal
The Varnes Medal is the highest award provided by the International Consortium on Landslides; it recognizes professional excellence in landslide research. Nominees for the Varnes Medal must meet at least two of the following criteria:
- Professional excellence in landslide research
- Professional excellence in landslide disaster risk reduction (new criteria)
- Significant contribution to the development of ICL and IPL (new criteria)
- Significant contribution to public education regarding landslide hazards
- International recognition for a professional career involving landslides
- Influential landslide research or development of methods or techniques
- Teacher of students who work on landslide issues
Photo of the Varnes Medal awarded to Badaoui Rouhban in 2017
Varnes medal is made of pure silver commemorating David Varnes (US. Geological Survey).
The past recipients of Varnes Medal are:
- Robert Schuster (US Geological Survey, USA) , 2nd Session of BOR/ICL at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada in October 2003
- John Hutchinson (Imperial Colleague, UK), 3rd Sesson of BOR/ICL at Druzba Hotel, Bratislava, Slovakia in October 2004
- Masami Fukuoka (University of Tokyo, Japan), 4th Session of BOR/ICL at Keck Center of the National Academy of Science, Washington D.C., USA in October 2005
- Norbert R. Morgenstern (University of Alberta, Canada), 5th Session of BOR/ICL at Bonvin Building, UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France in November 2006
- Edward Derybyshire (University of Leicester, UK), 6th Session of BOR/ICL at Bonvin Building, UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France in November 2007
- David Cruden (University of Alberta, Canada), 7th Session of BOR/ICL at the United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan in November 2008
- Zaiguan Lin (Leader of China-Japan Joint research on Landslide hazard assessment at Cultural heritage sites in Xi’an. It developed to IGCP-425 “Landslide Hazard Assessment and Cultural Heritage” which was further develop to ICL and IPL), 9th Session of BOR/ICL at Bonvin Building, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France in November 2010
- Rajendra Kumar Bhandari (Central Building Research Institute, India), 11th session of BOR/ICL, at Bonvin Building, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France in November 2012
- Luciano Picarelli (Seconda Università di Napoli), 13th session of BOR/ICL, at National Convention Center, Beijing, China, in June 2014
- Oldrich Hungr (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada), at 14th BOR/ICL, Tohoku Gakuin University, Sendai, Japan, in March 2015
- Jordi Corominas, (Technical University of Catalonia-UPC, Spain), 15th BOR/ICL, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, in March 2016
- Badaoui Rouhban (Former Director, Section for Disaster Reduction, UNESCO), 16th Session of BOR/ICL, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France in November 2016
- Salvano Briceno (Former Director, International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), 17th Session of BOR/ICL, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France in December 2017
- Hans van Ginkel (Former Rector of the United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan). 18th Session of BOR/ICL, DPRI, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan in December 2018
- Paolo Canuti (Former President of the ICL, University of Florence), 20th Session of BOR/ICL, online/Virtual Conference, Kyoto, Japan in November 2020.
- Paola Reichenbach (Director of Research, IRPI, Italian National Research Council, Italy), 2021 ICL-IPL-KLC2020 Hybrid Conference, Kyoto, Japan, in November 2021.