Understanding Landslide Risk, Building Resilience: Integrating Science, Policy, and Practice for Safer Communities: The Sierra Leone Experience

Landslides are complex natural hazards resulting from interactions among geological, geomorphological, hydrological, climatic and anthropogenic processes. In Sierra Leone, these risks are intensified by rapid urbanisation, environmental degradation, inadequate land-use planning and limited institutional capacity. The 14 August 2017 Regent landslide in the Freetown Peninsula demonstrated the severe consequences of rainfall triggered slope failure interacting with flooding, infrastructure vulnerability and human exposure. This study examines how landslide science, public policy and practical risk reduction measures can be integrated to promote safer and more resilient communities in Sierra Leone. It specifically considers the physical and human drivers of landslide risk, the contribution of inventories, susceptibility mapping, remote sensing, geospatial analysis and rainfall information, and the translation of scientific knowledge into planning, governance and community action. The paper adopts an integrated hazard-exposure-vulnerability-capacity framework and uses the Sierra Leone experience, particularly the Freetown Peninsula, as a case study. It synthesizes evidence from landslide inventories, susceptibility assessments, remote sensing studies, climate risk assessments, disaster risk policies and institutional developments. The analysis considers interactions among rainfall, terrain, land-use change, urbanisation, exposure, vulnerability and institutional capacity. The analysis shows that landslide risk in Sierra Leone is produced by the interaction of physical susceptibility and accumulated social vulnerability. The 2017 Regent event illustrates the importance of considering cascading processes, including landslide material, drainage networks, flood pathways and downstream exposure. Although scientific research, geospatial technologies and national disaster risk institutions are doing their utmost, gaps remain in risk communication, data management, community inclusion, infrastructure resilience and coordination between policy and implementation. Effective landslide risk reduction requires a shift from reactive disaster response towards integrated, anticipatory and community-centered resilience. Connecting geoscience, remote sensing, engineering, climate science, spatial planning, ecosystem management, governance and community knowledge can help ensure that scientific evidence directly informs development and risk reduction decisions.