Internal soil moisture and piezometric responses to rainfall-induced shallow slope failures     

Huang Ching-Chuan  Ju Yih-Jang  Hwu Lih-Kang  Lee Jin-Long   《Journal of Hydrology》2009,370(1-4):39-51

Better knowledge regarding internal soil moisture and piezometric responses in the process of rainfall-induced shallow slope failures is the key to an effective prediction of the landslide and/or debris flow initiation. To this end, internal soil moisture and piezometric response of 0.7-m-deep, 1.5-m-wide, 1.7-m-high, and 3.94-m-long semi-infinite sandy slopes rested on a bi-linear impermeable bedrock were explored using a chute test facility with artificial rainfall applications. The internal response time defined by the inflection point of the soil moisture and piezometric response curves obtained along the soil–bedrock interface were closely related to some critical failure states, such as the slope toe failure and extensive slope failures. It was also found that the response times obtained at the point of abrupt bedrock slope decrease can be used as indicators for the initiation of rainfall-induced shallow slope failures. An investigation of spatial distributions of soil water content, ω (or degrees of saturation, S_r), in the slope at critical failure states shows that the 0.2 m – below – surface zone remains unsaturated with S_r 40–60%, regardless of their distances from the toe and the rainfall intensity. Non-uniform distributions of ω (or S_r) along the soil–bedrock interface at critical failure states were always associated with near-saturation states (S_r 80–100%) around the point of bedrock slope change or around the transient ‘toe’ upstream of the slumped mass induced by the retrogressive failure of the slope. These observations suggest the important role of the interflow along the soil–bedrock interface and the high soil water content (or high porewater pressure) around the point of bedrock slope deflection in the rainfall-induced failure of sandy slopes consisting of shallow impermeable bedrocks. The present study proposes an ‘internal response time’ criterion to substantiate the prediction of rainfall-induced shallow slope failures. It is believed that the ‘internal response time’ reflects the overall characteristics of a slope under rainfall infiltration and can be as useful as the conventional meteorology-based threshold times. The ‘internal response time’ theory can be generalized via numerical modeling of slope hydrology, slope geology and slope stability in the future.  相似文献   

Internal soil moisture response to rainfall-induced slope failures and debris discharge   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Ching-Chuan Huang  Chien-Li Lo  Jia-Shiun Jang  Lih-Kang Hwu   《Engineering Geology》2008,101(3-4):134-145

Predictions of rainfall-induced fast-moving mass flow and/or debris flows require better knowledge of the mechanism controlling the debris discharge of slopes in debris source areas. A series of rainfall tests on 0.32 m-deep, 0.7 m-high, 1.35 m-wide sandy slopes resting on a bi-linear impermeable rigid base was performed. Soil moisture content and solid discharge measurements were performed to gain insights into the rainfall-induced retrogressive slope failure. The solid (or debris) discharge is a result of the wash-out of the fluidized slope toe by the interflow along the soil–bedrock interface. Characteristics of the failure process for the slopes are represented by mass wasting curves or ‘solid discharge (Q_s) vs. time (t)’ curves which are functions of the rainfall intensity and/or the cumulative rainfall. The mass wasting curves have inflection points representing transitions from minor toe failures into remarkable retrogressive failures. The first inflection point of the soil moisture (ω) vs. t curve measured at the soil–bedrock interface signaling the arrival of the descending ‘wet front’, may serve as a precursor for predicting the onset of an abrupt solid discharge induced by shallow slope failures. The time of peak water content measured at the soil–bedrock interface may approximate the time of 5% total solid volume discharge. Up to the time of 5% of total slope volume discharge, a fully saturated state (S_r  100%) was never observed at the 0.2 m-below-surface zone; however, it was observed along the soil–bedrock interface at near-toe zone of the slope, regardless of the intensity of rainfall investigated. Retrogressive failures were essentially associated with nonuniformly distributed water content in the slope. For both the 0.2 m-below-surface zone and the soil–bedrock interface, a more uniform distribution of S_r along the full height of the slope was found for slopes subjected to high rainfall intensities of 47 and 65 mm/h than that for the slope subjected to a low rainfall intensity of 23 mm/h. At the inflection point of the Q_s vs. t curve and 5% of total solid volume discharge, values of S_r at a certain distance from the toe for the soil–bedrock interface were higher than those measured at the same distance from the toe for the 0.2 m-below-surface zone, indicating the effect of infiltration-induced interflow along the soil–bedrock interface and its effects on the fluidization of the slope toe and the retrogressive failure of the slope.  相似文献