The British Geological Survey (BGS) and the Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection (IRPI) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at fostering common research activities in the fields of geomorphology and engineering geology, with emphasis on:

• multi-scale geomorphological and geological mapping and modelling,
• development of systems for the operational forecasting of landslides,
• geo-hydrological risk assessment in a multi-risk context, and
• impacts of global, climatic and environmental changes on geo-hydrological instability phenomena.

The formal exchange of documents between Helen Reeves, Scientific Director for Applied Geology and Geoengineering of the BGS, and Fausto Guzzetti, Director of the CNR-IRPI, shown in the photo [Photo 1], took place at the General Assembly of the European Geoscience Union (EGU) underway in Vienna, Austria.