Alejandra Serey

This paper examines the role of women engineering geologists and geoscientists in disaster risk management (DRM) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), giving insights into how equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) influence technical performance, governance, and long-term resilience in hazard-prone contexts. The review analyses selected country cases (Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Peru), complemented by regional evidence from Brazil and Mexico, and draws on policy documents, institutional reports, professional initiatives, and applied community-based projects. The review indicates that women professionals contribute to DRM not only through technical expertise in geohazard assessment and mitigation but also by sustaining continuity in territorial engagement, facilitating communication between technical and non-technical actors, and strengthening the social legitimacy of risk management measures. Across the analysed cases, women engineers frequently occupy bridging roles that connect scientific evidence, local knowledge, and institutional decision-making, enhancing the effectiveness and durability of geotechnical interventions. This review of cases also identifies persistent constraints that affect both equity outcomes and engineering practice. These include the underrepresentation of women in senior and decision-making positions, fragmented implementation of EDI initiatives, and limited availability of gender-disaggregated and longitudinal workforce data. Such factors reduce institutional capacity for knowledge retention, monitoring, and adaptive risk governance. The findings indicate that inclusive participation, geoethical practice, and professional networks should be understood as core components of effective engineering geology and DRM. Strengthening gender-responsive data systems, leadership pathways, and professional coordination mechanisms is therefore essential to improve technical outcomes and societal resilience in the LAC region.

Landslides represent the most frequent geological hazard in mountainous environments. Most notably, landslides are a major source of fatalities and damage related to strong earthquakes. The main aim of this research is to show through three-dimensional engineer-friendly computer drawings, different mountain environments where coseismic landslides could be generated during shallow crustal and megathrust earthquakes in the Andes of central Chile. We have determined topographic, geomorphological, geological and seismic controlling factors in the occurrence of earthquake-triggered landslides from: (1) a comparison of local earthquake-induced landslide inventories in Chile (the M _w 6.2, shallow crustal Aysén earthquake in 2007 (45.3° S) and the M _w 8.8, megathrust Maule earthquake in 2010 (32.5°S–38.5°S)) with others from abroad; and (2) analysis of large, prehistoric landslide inventories proposed as likely induced by seismic activity. With these results, we have built four representative geomodels of coseismic landslide geomorphological environments in the Andes of central Chile. Each one represents the possible landslide types that could be generated by a shallow crustal earthquake v. those likely to be generated by a megathrust earthquake. Additionally, the associated hazards and suggested mitigation measures are expressed in each scenario. These geomodels are a powerful tool for earthquake-induced landslide hazard assessment. Thematic collection: This article is part of the Ground models in engineering geology and hydrogeology collection available at: https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/Ground-models-in-engineering-geology-and-hydrogeology

We address the question of whether all large‐magnitude earthquakes produce an erosion peak in the subaerial components of fluvial catchments. We evaluate the sediment flux response to the Maule earthquake in the Chilean Andes (Mw 8.8) using daily suspended sediment records from 31 river gauges. The catchments cover drainage areas of 350 to around 10,000 km², including a wide range of topographic slopes and vegetation cover of the Andean western flank. We compare the 3‐ to 8‐year postseismic record of sediment flux to each of the following preseismic periods: (1) all preseismic data, (2) a 3‐year period prior to the seismic event, and (3) the driest preseismic periods, as drought conditions prevailed in the postseismic period. Following the earthquake, no increases in suspended sediment flux were observed for moderate to high percentiles of the streamflow distribution (mean, median, and ≥75th percentile). However, more than half of the examined stations showed increased sediment flux during baseflow. By using a Random Forest approach, we evaluate the contributions of seismic intensities, peak ground accelerations, co‐seismic landslides, hydroclimatic conditions, topography, lithology, and land cover to explain the observed changes in suspended sediment concentration and fluxes. We find that the best predictors are hillslope gradient, low‐vegetation cover, and changes in streamflow discharge. This finding suggests a combined first‐order control of topography, land cover, and hydrology on the catchment‐wide erosion response. We infer a reduced sediment connectivity due to the postseismic drought, which increased the residence time of sediment detached and remobilized following the Maule earthquake.