Landslide triggering, mobility, and monitoring in a changing climate

为评估加拿大对持续气候变化的脆弱性而进行的研究表明：a)即使在低碳情景下，预计加拿大所有地区未来都会变暖；b)加拿大北极地区的变暖速度将比加拿大南部快得多；c)预计加拿大南部在春季、秋季和冬季会变得更加潮湿，但在夏季会变得更加干燥。这些温度和湿度的变化有可能对支撑高速公路、铁路、管道或形成保留加拿大采矿业废物的水坝的土壤斜坡的稳定性产生深远的影响。迫切需要研究气候在触发不稳定机制中的作用，气候对碎片流动性的影响，以及开发创新的新监测工具来观察和管理气候对基础设施岩土工程组件的影响。未来五年的补充项目将：a)定义基础物理学，这些基础物理学共同作用，导致在尾矿坝破坏、降雨诱发的滑坡期间和海底滑坡流破坏中触发液化；b)探索定义干燥和饱和颗粒流、广泛分级的泥石流的剪切特性的微观力学；和液化土壤，以确定气候因素，如水分有效性，如何影响碎片的速度和最大远端范围。c)开发和应用先进的图像分析和分布式光纤应变测量技术，分析铁路轨道几何形状的季节性退化以及管道中轴向和弯曲应变的累积，以应对气候驱动的滑坡运动，以确定更安全和更具成本效益的缓解措施。这项工作将引入新的分析方法、实验技术和数据来验证数值模拟结果，并将影响或定义加拿大和国际奖学金和设计实践。加拿大庞大而成功的工程服务咨询行业是通过获得具有硕士或更高水平资格的高素质人才而成为可能的。该提案旨在培养总共17名HQP（3名博士，9名研究硕士，5名本科），成为加拿大未来的领导者，了解和减轻气候变化对土木工程基础设施岩土工程部分的影响。提案中列出的四个本科HQP是一个非常成功和经过验证的策略的延续，即从代表性不足的群体中招募优秀的候选人进入女王大学土木工程研究生学习。

Research conducted to assess Canada's vulnerability to continued climate changes indicates that: a) all of Canada is projected to get warmer in the future, even under a low-carbon scenario, b) Canada's Artic will warm much faster than Canada's South, and c) Southern Canada is projected to get much wetter throughout the spring, fall, and winter months, but much drier in the summer. These changes in temperature and moisture have the potential for profound impacts on the stability of the soil slopes supporting highways, railways, containing pipelines, or forming the dams that retain the waste from Canada's mining industry. Research is urgently needed to define the role of climate in the mechanics of triggering of instability, impact of climate on the mobility of the debris, and to develop innovative new monitoring tools to observe and manage the effect of climate on the geotechnical components of our infrastructure. Complementary projects of the next five years will  a) Define the fundamental physics working together to lead to the triggering of liquefaction in the failure of tailings dams, during rainfall-induced landslides, and within submarine landslide flow failures b) Explore the micromechanics defining the shear properties of dry and saturated granular flows, widely-graded debris flows, and liquefied soil to define how climatic factors such as water availability influences the velocity and maximum distal reach of the debris. c) Develop and apply cutting-edge image analysis and distributed fiber optic strain measurement technologies to analyse seasonal degradation of railway track geometry and accumulation of axial and flexural strains in pipelines in response to climate-driven landslide motion to define safer and more cost effective mitigation measures. The work will introduce new methods of analysis, experimental techniques, and data to validate numerical modelling outcomes, and will influence or define Canadian & international scholarship and design practices for these problems. Canada's large and successful engineering service consulting industry is made possible by access to highly qualified personnel with qualifications at the MSc level or higher. This proposal aims to train a total of 17 HQP (3 PhD, 9 Research MSc, 5 UG) to become Canada's future leaders in understanding and mitigating the effects of climate change on the geotechnical engineering components of our Civil Engineering infrastructure. The four undergraduate HQP listed in the proposal are a continuation of a highly successful and proven strategy to recruit outstanding candidates from under-represented groups into graduate studies in Civil Engineering at Queen's University.