Addressing cascading mountain hazards requires scientific cooperation across borders

Editor's note: The devastating glacier collapse and ensuing debris flow near the China-Nepal border in August underscored the need for stronger cross-border cooperation in addressing mountain hazards. Against this backdrop, the Global Partnership for Mountain Chain Hazards with Intelligent Early Warning and Risk Governance (M-CHAIN) was launched at Chengdu University of Technology on October 18.

In this article, Fan Xuanmei, Chair of the M-CHAIN initiative, discusses the importance of international collaboration in mountain hazard early warning and risk governance. Fan is also Secretary of the Party Committee and Director of the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection at Chengdu University of Technology.

On October 18, the Global Partnership for Mountain Chain Hazards with Intelligent Early Warning and Risk Governance (M-CHAIN) was launched at Chengdu University of Technology. In July, the initiative was included in the third batch of endorsed initiatives under the United Nations International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (IDSSD, 2024-2033).

It is the first China-led international mega-science initiative in the field of geohazards to be endorsed under the IDSSD and the only initiative in this field among the 22 endorsed initiatives in the third batch. More than 100 experts and scholars from over 20 countries and regions participated in related activities, alongside representatives of international organizations, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the International Association for Engineering Geology and the Environment (IAEG), and the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL).

M-CHAIN is led and coordinated by the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection at Chengdu University of Technology. Initiated by Professor Fan Xuanmei, who serves as chair of the initiative, M-CHAIN brings together research institutions and experts from countries including Italy, Nepal, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada and Peru, and works in collaboration with international organizations such as ICIMOD, IAEG and ICL.

The initiative addresses an increasingly prominent global challenge. Under the combined influence of climate change and complex environmental conditions, mountain hazards are becoming more complex in their formation and evolution, with impacts that can extend across river basins, regions and national borders. How can research move beyond individual hazards to understand entire hazard chains? And how can scientific advances be translated into coordinated disaster risk reduction capabilities? These questions have become central to global mountain hazard risk governance.

From studying individual hazards to understanding entire hazard chains

Global climate change is increasingly reshaping hazard processes in high mountain regions, with impacts extending far beyond the mountains themselves to affect people, infrastructure and development pathways. Accelerated warming is driving rapid cryosphere retreat, permafrost degradation and glacier destabilization. At the same time, extreme precipitation events are becoming more frequent and intense, while the expansion of human activities into hazardous terrain further amplifies exposure and vulnerability.

Under these combined pressures, landslides, debris flows, ice-rock avalanches and glacial lake outburst floods are often interconnected components of evolving hazard chains rather than independent phenomena. Such cascading processes may occur immediately after a triggering event or persist for months, years or even decades, reshaping landscapes and altering downstream risk patterns.

Mountain hazards can therefore no longer be adequately understood or managed as isolated events. Instead, they increasingly unfold as cascading hazard chains, in which one process triggers or amplifies subsequent hazards, with impacts propagating across space, time and administrative boundaries.

Simply identifying individual hazard sites is insufficient to capture these complex dynamics. Effective disaster risk reduction requires a system-level understanding of hazard chains, including their formation conditions, evolution pathways and mechanisms of risk propagation.

M-CHAIN was developed to meet these scientific and governance needs. Running from 2026 to 2034, the initiative brings together expertise in geology, climate science, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, engineering-based disaster prevention and public governance. It focuses on shared scientific questions and critical technological challenges in managing cascading geohazards across major mountain systems worldwide. It aims to move research from localized hazard identification towards integrated understanding, and from experience-based judgment towards approaches informed jointly by data and physical mechanisms.

Specifically, M-CHAIN will establish an open and shared global database of mountain hazard chains, integrating multi-source information from remote sensing, field investigations, historical disaster records and social vulnerability assessments. It will conduct demonstration studies and intelligent early-warning pilot projects in representative mountain systems, including the Himalaya - Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, the Alps and the Andes, and develop methods for intelligent hazard detection, precise monitoring and early warning, and risk assessment under complex environmental conditions.

The initiative will also advance the application of artificial intelligence and big data to hazard-chain identification, evolution modeling and risk analysis, while exploring monitoring, early-warning, risk-assessment and coordinated governance approaches that can be replicated and scaled up.

From fragmented monitoring to cross-regional coordination

Mountain hazard chains can propagate downstream along river valleys, with impacts extending far beyond the areas where hazards originate. In 2023, the outburst of South Lhonak Lake in Sikkim, India, sent floodwaters downstream, destroying a major hydropower facility and affecting areas hundreds of kilometers away. In 2025, a glacial lake outburst flood upstream of the Gyirong Port area in the Xizang Autonomous Region, southwest China, affected downstream infrastructure in China and caused severe losses in Nepal.

In 2026, another cascading disaster affected the China-Nepal border region near Gyirong Port: a high-altitude ice-rock avalanche on the Nepalese side evolved into a high-velocity debris flow, reportedly devastating the port area and propagating nearly 100 kilometers downstream, with more than 6,500 people reported dead or missing. These cases illustrate why individual hazard sites, administrative jurisdictions and disciplinary perspectives alone are no longer sufficient to address the growing risks posed by cascading mountain hazards.

Yet monitoring capabilities, data standards, information-sharing mechanisms and early-warning procedures often vary from one region to another. Even when one area detects signs of an impending hazard, monitoring results may not translate into effective disaster prevention if the information is not transmitted in time or downstream communities lack the capacity to assess risks and prepare appropriate responses. Managing cascading mountain hazards is therefore not only a scientific challenge but also a matter of cross-regional and transboundary governance. Countries need to strengthen joint research, data sharing and collaborative risk analysis to develop a more comprehensive understanding of hazard evolution and its potential impacts.

M-CHAIN treats cascading mountain hazards as a shared global challenge. Through demonstration studies and intelligent early-warning pilot projects in representative mountain systems, it seeks to foster cooperation among countries and regions in monitoring, assessment and governance. In areas exposed to transboundary risks, including the China-Nepal border region, partners can work together according to local needs on priority hazard identification, hazard-chain scenario analysis, integration of multi-source monitoring data and early-warning coordination. These efforts can help establish mechanisms for sharing risk information, conducting joint assessments and coordinating emergency responses.

International cooperation does not mean that all disasters can be prevented or that every event can be accurately predicted in advance. Its practical value lies in improving the collective understanding of complex risks, strengthening information exchange and coordination among affected regions, and providing a more systematic scientific basis for transboundary disaster risk governance. Hazard chains can cross national borders; risk information and disaster prevention cooperation should not stop at them.

From scientific cooperation to capacity building

High-risk mountain regions are widely distributed around the world, and some continue to face constraints in monitoring resources, early-warning technologies and professional expertise. Research on cascading hazards requires not only scientific breakthroughs but also the translation of research methods, technological advances and practical experience into disaster risk reduction capabilities that different countries and regions can understand, develop and apply.

International scientific cooperation that remains limited to academic exchanges and research publications cannot fully address these practical needs. Joint research must be combined with technical exchange, talent development and capacity development if scientific knowledge is to serve local hazard identification, monitoring, early warning and risk governance more effectively.

M-CHAIN will draw on international training platforms such as iRALL School to promote international exchanges and the development of early-career researchers. Through courses, academic workshops, field-based learning and case studies, it will facilitate knowledge sharing and the exchange of practical experience among researchers from different countries.

By involving early-career scientists in international collaboration and hands-on research, the initiative aims to strengthen their ability to understand cascading hazards, apply scientific methods and participate in collaborative international research. In doing so, it will promote the co-production, dissemination and application of scientific knowledge on disaster risk reduction.

Natural environments, technological conditions and governance systems differ across regions. International cooperation should not impose a single model on all local contexts. Rather, through joint research and the exchange of experience, it should help develop risk reduction approaches suited to the characteristics of different regions, while enabling scientific knowledge to be jointly produced, shared and applied.

From understanding hazard chains to strengthening cross-regional coordination and building capacity, M-CHAIN seeks to translate international scientific collaboration into practical action to address global mountain hazard risks. In doing so, it aims to strengthen the resilience of mountain.