Soil Slips Versus Flow Failures in Rain-Infiltrated Slopes: Using Mechanical Stability Principles to Enhance Spatially Distributed Models for Landslide Forecasting

该项目的目标是促进基于物理的滑坡预测模型的变革性进步。为了达到这一目标，我们将把土壤稳定性的新概念纳入天然斜坡的破坏标准中。将特别注意气候强迫和雨水渗透的影响，众所周知，这会改变水压状况，恶化岩土材料的强度特性，并导致斜坡和土方工程的严重破坏。该项目将使用创新的方法来捕捉多种类型的故障(例如，局部滑移或类似流动的不稳定性)。这些标准将与土壤贴面的水文响应模拟相结合，从而能够预测区域范围内不稳定地面运动的可能性。该项目将考虑在降雨期间普遍发生山体滑坡的景观的具体案例。对于这些情况，我们将为给定的地貌特征、岩土特性和水文条件的组合生成临界触发扰动图表。预期的成果是制定新的定量方法，通过物理模拟来控制自然和城市化景观中稳定性的演变状态。该项目的结果将通过提高通过物理模型定位不同类型的斜坡破坏的能力而造福社会。根据场地的具体特点，土壤覆盖物可能会以流动性有限的滑梯或快速流动的形式坍塌。世界各地的几个案例表明了这些差异的戏剧性影响，因为快速山体滑坡可能会造成相当大的财产损失和生命损失。该项目促进了对山坡动态的实际了解，这将在自然灾害管理中发挥作用。特别是，将科学发现纳入滑坡预测实践，可对世界一些地区的风险评估和土地利用规划产生广泛的社会和教育影响。此外，更好地了解自然环境中的土壤破坏将影响由人类活动和地貌过程相互作用所主导的广泛问题，如土壤侵蚀、泥沙输送和河道管理。将整合教育和外联举措，以利用该项目的研究部分，包括研究生的国际经验和工程和地球科学学生的综合教育举措。

The goal of this project is to contribute to the transformative advancement of physically-based models for landslide forecasting. This objective will be pursued by incorporating novel concepts of soil stability into the failure criteria for natural slopes. Particular attention will be given to the effects of climatic forcing and rain infiltration, which are known to change the water-pressure regime, deteriorate the strength properties of geotechnical materials and cause dramatic failures in slopes and earthworks. The project will use innovative methods to capture multiple types of failure (e.g., localized slips or flow-like instabilities). These criteria will be combined with the simulation of the hydrologic response of soil veneers, thus allowing the prediction of the potential for unstable ground movements at regional scale. The project will consider specific cases of landscapes which have suffered pervasive landsliding during rainfall events. For these cases, we will generate charts of critical triggering perturbations for given combinations of morphologic features, geotechnical properties and hydrologic conditions. The expected outcome is to formulate new quantitative methods to control the evolving state of stability in natural and urbanized landscapes through physically-based simulations.Findings from this project will benefit society by enhancing the ability to locate different types of slope failure via physical modeling. Depending on site-specific features, soil covers can fail either in the form of slides with limited mobility or as rapid flows. Several cases around the world have demonstrated the dramatic implications of these differences, as rapid landslides may involve considerable damages to property and the loss of human lives. The physical understanding of hillslope dynamics fostered by this project will play a role in the management of natural disasters. In particular, the incorporation of scientific findings into the practice of landslide forecasting can have broad societal and educational impacts for risk assessment and land-use planning in several areas of the world. In addition, an improved understanding of soil failure in natural settings will impact a broad range of problems dominated by the interplay between human activities and geomorphic processes, such as soil erosion, sediment transport and river-channel management. Education and outreach initiatives will be integrated to capitalize on the research components of the project, including international experiences for graduate students and an integrated educational initiative for engineering and geoscience students.