2017 May, Vienna, Austria

A signing ceremony of “Memorandum of Cooperation between the Sabo Department of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan and the Forestry Department of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management of the Republic of Austria in the Field of Sediment Disaster Risk Management” (hereafter referred to as “MoC”) was held prior to the meeting and the following matters were confirmed.

• Cooperation in the field of risk management of sediment disasters such as debris flow, landslide, slope failure and avalanche.
• Promotion of the cooperation through workshops, meetings, field trips and exchange of experts
• Participation of administrative organization and other organizations such as research institutes, universities, local governments, private companies, etc. if necessity arises.

Six Japanese and seven Austrian engineers participated in the meeting and three topics were presented respectively from both sides.

The Austrian participants showed their interest in Japanese measures such as the setting of the sediment disaster warning area and the sediment transport observation in a stream using the hydro-phone. Austrian side introduced “Risk Governance” which encouraged the active participation of local people in structural and non-structural sediment disaster countermeasures and aimed to improve the efficiency of the countermeasures through the people’s smooth consensus building.

The Japanese delegation visited Gschliefgraben, St. Lorenzen, Hallstatt and Spitz as the field trip guided by the Austria side on May 19^th and 20^th to understand features of sediment disasters and sabo works in Austria.

The exchange of the erosion control technology between Japan and Austria has been being implemented since the invitation of Dr. Amerigo Hoffman to Tokyo Imperial University in early 1900’s, and it is expected that this “MoC” enables both countries to develop further exchange of the sabo technology.