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

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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.