Modelling vegetation growth and its impact on slope hydrology and stability

模拟植被生长及其对边坡水文和稳定性的影响

• 批准号: NE/F011113/1
• 负责人: Paul Bates
• 金额: $ 4.03万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2008 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FF011113%2F1
• 关键词: Modelling; vegetation; growth; its; impact

The importance of vegetation for slope processes is widely acknowledged. For instance vegetation can decrease the amount of rainfall reaching the ground as it stores water in the canopy. Vegetation also removes water from the ground by the evaporation-transpiration process and tends to strengthen the soil via its root network. Therefore vegetation is an important factor to take into account when evaluating landslide risk. However, although vegetation is dynamic and evolves through time, slope hydrology and stability models do not allow vegetation to vary over time. The proposed research will relax this critical limitation by allowing all vegetation components to vary dynamically, therefore effectively letting vegetation grow as a function of the age of the plant, the species, the current climatic conditions and water availability in the soil directly within the model. The proposed research is an important stepping stone to answer two fundamental questions for slope hydrology and stability analysis. Firstly it is critical to understand at what stage of growth vegetation starts reinforcing a slope. This is particularly relevant in the context of 'soft' approaches to landslide risk reduction which use vegetation as a cost effective and often community based way to manage landslide risk. Secondly climatic conditions are changing globally and will impact vegetation development and water availability on slopes. Modelled climate data for the next decades is readily available for a range of CO2 scenarios but we lack a means to evaluate landslide risk over the next decades in regions where vegetation is due to vary due to climatic forcing. The proposed research is cross disciplinary and will attract interest from a range of stakeholders both in the UK and overseas and across the natural sciences an engineering spectrum.

植被对坡面过程的重要性已得到广泛的承认。例如，植被可以减少到达地面的降雨量，因为它在树冠中储存水分。植被还通过蒸发-蒸腾过程从地面吸收水分，并往往通过其根系网络加强土壤。因此，植被是评估滑坡风险时要考虑的重要因素。然而，虽然植被是动态的，并随着时间的推移而演变，边坡水文和稳定性模型不允许植被随时间而变化。拟议的研究将放宽这一关键限制，允许所有植被成分动态变化，从而有效地让植被生长作为植物年龄，物种，当前气候条件和土壤中水分可用性的函数直接在模型中。该研究为解决边坡水文和稳定性分析的两个基本问题提供了重要的基础。首先，了解植被在什么生长阶段开始加固边坡至关重要。这一点在减少滑坡风险的“软”方法中尤其重要，这种方法利用植被作为一种具有成本效益的、往往以社区为基础的方法来管理滑坡风险。第二，全球气候条件正在发生变化，将影响山坡上的植被发展和水的供应。未来几十年的模拟气候数据很容易用于一系列CO2情景，但我们缺乏一种方法来评估未来几十年植被因气候强迫而变化的地区的滑坡风险。拟议的研究是跨学科的，将吸引来自英国和海外的一系列利益相关者的兴趣，并跨越自然科学和工程领域。