From November 20 to 23, 2020, the 18th International Symposium on Geo-disaster Reduction / 4th Gu Dezhen Lecture was grandly held in the institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Science.

The conference was jointly organized by the International Consortium on Geo-disaster Reduction (ICGdR),Engineering Geology Commission of China Geology Society, the Key Laboratory of Shale Gas and Geological Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Tongji University. This conference invited Peng Jianbing, the Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as the lecturer of Gu Dezhen's lecture to give a wonderful lecture entitled "Research on Large Deformation of Loose Layers-Sentiment and Gratitude of Scientific Research for 40 Years". With the theme of "Improving the Relationship between Geo-environment and Society".The conference also invited more than 30 well-known international experts to give academic reports for participants. Experts and scholars from China, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, Nepal and other countries Participated in this conference both offline and online. More than 800,000 people attended this conference via online meeting.

Professor Cheng Qiangong, UNESCO Chair Professor of "Geological Environment Hazards and Disaster Reduction", ICGdR Honorary Fellow, Assistant Chairman, led our young teachers, doctoral students and master students from the Department of Geological Engineering to attend the conference. Associate researcher Wang Yufeng won the Young Scientist Award fromthe International Consortium on Geo-disaster Reduction(ICGdR).

It is reported thatthe International Consortium on Geo-disaster Reduction (ICGdR)has been active in academic research fields related to geological disasters such as landslides, debris flows, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis for a long time with the support of UNESCO, the International Integrated Disaster Reduction (IRDR) Program of the United Nations Disaster Reduction Agency, the Japanese government and relevant international academic institutions. ICGdR currently has more than 80 member units on five continents around the world and it is a well-known non-governmental organization in the field of geological disasters and disaster reduction worldwide. The Gu Dezhen lecture is the top academic lecture in the field of engineering geology in China. It is named after Mr. Gu Dezhen, one of the founders of the engineering geology discipline and the late member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (academician).

Group photo of teachers and students of the Department of Geological Engineering with Academician Peng Jianbing and Professor Wang Fawu, Chairman of ICGdR

Group photo of teachers and students in the Department of Geological Engineering