Most landslides are triggered by rainfall. In previous studies, slope stability is often evaluated based on the infiltration analysis. Hydro-mechanical coupling is significant to rainfall-caused landslide evolution. This book covers theoretical models of unsaturated infiltration, and provides hydro-mechanical models for rainfall-induced landslides. The influences of rainfall patterns, boundary conditions, layered structures, and SWCC hysteresis on the coupled unsaturated infiltration and deformation are discussed. Laboratory testing of rainfall-induced landslides is performed to study the developing process of landslide upon rainfall infiltration. The results provide a better understanding of rainfall-induced landslides.
Rainfall-triggered landslides are a globally occurring hazard that cause several thousand fatalities per year on average and lead to economic damages by destroying buildings and infrastructure and blocking transportation networks. For people living and governing in susceptible areas, knowing not only where, but also when landslides are most probable is key to inform strategies to reduce risk, requiring reliable assessments of weather-related landslide hazard and adequate warning. Taking proper action during high hazard periods, such as moving to higher levels of houses, closing roads and rail networks, and evacuating neighborhoods, can save lives. Nevertheless, many regions of the world with high landslide risk currently lack dedicated, operational landslide early warning systems. The mounting availability of temporal landslide inventory data in some regions has increasingly enabled data-driven approaches to estimate landslide hazard on the basis of rainfall conditions. In other areas, however, such data remains scarce, calling ...
Climate is changing, forced out of the range of the past million years by levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases not seen in the Earth's atmosphere for a very, very long time. Lacking action by the world's nations, it is clear that the planet will be warmer, sea level will rise, and patterns of rainfall will change. But the future is also partly uncertain-there is considerable uncertainty about how we will arrive at that different climate. Will the changes be gradual, allowing natural systems and societal infrastructure to adjust in a timely fashion? Or will some of the changes be more abrupt, crossing some threshold or "tipping point" to change so fast that the time between when a problem is recognized and when action is required shrinks to the point where orderly adaptation is not possible? Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change is an updated look at the issue of abrupt climate change and its potential impacts. This study differs from previous treatments of abrupt changes by focusing on abrupt climate changes and also abrupt climate impacts that have the potential to severely affect the physical climate system, natural systems, or human systems, often affecting multiple interconnected areas of concern. The primary timescale of concern is years to decades. A key characteristic of these changes is that they can come faster than expected, planned, or budgeted for, forcing more reactive, rather than proactive, modes of behavior. Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change summarizes the state of our knowledge about potential abrupt changes and abrupt climate impacts and categorizes changes that are already occurring, have a high probability of occurrence, or are unlikely to occur. Because of the substantial risks to society and nature posed by abrupt changes, this report recommends the development of an Abrupt Change Early Warning System that would allow for the prediction and possible mitigation of such changes before their societal impacts are severe. Identifying key vulnerabilities can help guide efforts to increase resiliency and avoid large damages from abrupt change in the climate system, or in abrupt impacts of gradual changes in the climate system, and facilitate more informed decisions on the proper balance between mitigation and adaptation. Although there is still much to learn about abrupt climate change and abrupt climate impacts, to willfully ignore the threat of abrupt change could lead to more costs, loss of life, suffering, and environmental degradation. Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change makes the case that the time is here to be serious about the threat of tipping points so as to better anticipate and prepare ourselves for the inevitable surprises.
This book includes five articles and a technical note recently published in the Special Issue "Rainfall-Induced Landslides Hazard" from the journal Hydrology. Its main objective is to describe the latest developments and applications of the use of new numerical and analytical methods to improve our understanding of rainfall-induced landslide models and other aspects of landslide-hazard assessment. In the first article, based on the estimation of rainfall thresholds and their return periods in a sector of southern Spain, a linear equation for the rainfall duration threshold and a power-law curve for the intensity-duration pair were determined. The second and fourth articles present two case studies in Italy on the assessment of landslide susceptibility. One of them uses the Weight of Evidence method and takes into account parameters such as geology, activity, land use, average annual precipitation and extreme precipitation events, and the other one compares Forward Conditional Analysis and Forward Logistic Regression methods. The next work aims to generate and compare the basic information on rainfall events triggering landslides in two areas with different climate and geological settings (southern Ecuador and southern Spain). In addition, this paper gives preliminary insights into the correlation between these rainfall events and major climate cycles affecting each of these study areas. The last article focuses on the estimation of evapotranspiration using remote sensing and the Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land in western Iran. Finally, the technical note presents a procedure to determine and validate the probabilities for landslide occurrence by using different precipitation parameters (rainfall intensity, rainfall duration and event rainfall) in Bhutan.
This book assembles most of the works presented at the International Workshop on Extreme Rainfall Induced Landslides, held in Rio de Janeiro 11-15 February 2012, in response to the landslide disaster which occurred in the Serrana Region of Rio de Janeiro one year before, and also other disasters in the states of Santa Catarina, São Paulo, Pernambuco, Alagoas, and Minas Gerais. The workshop brought together great landslide experts from all around the world, and the outcome was a Final Report sent to competent governmental Brazilian authorities. The presentations, discussions and lessons learned highlighted the urgency of governmental actions to incentivize scientific and technological researches, aiming to accelerate the methodological development in order to avoid, reduce and mitigate the hazardous consequences of these natural disasters.
This volume contains peer-reviewed papers from the Fourth World Landslide Forum organized by the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL), the Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL), University of Ljubljana (UL) and Geological Survey of Slovenia in Ljubljana, Slovenia from May 29 to June 2, 2017. The complete collection of papers from the Forum is published in five full-color volumes. This fourth volume contains the following: • Earthquake-Induced Landslides • Rainfall-Induced Landslides • Rapid Landslides: Debris Flows, Mudflows, Rapid Debris-Slides • Landslides in Rocks and Complex Landslides: Rock Topples, Rock Falls, Rock Slides,Complex Landslides • Landslides and Other Natural Hazards: Floods, Droughts, Wildfires, Tsunamis, Volcanoes Prof. Matjaž Mikoš is the Forum Chair of the Fourth World Landslide Forum. He is the Vice President of International Consortium on Landslides and President of the Slovenian NationalPlatform for Disaster Risk Reduction. Prof. Nicola Casagli is Founding member of the International Consortium on Landslides(ICL), professor at the University of Florence and founder of the UNESCO Chair on geohydrological hazards at the same University. Prof. Yueping Yin is the President of the International Consortium on Landslides and the Chairman of the Committee of Geo-Hazards Prevention of China, and the Chief Geologist of Geo-Hazard Emergency Technology, Ministry of Land and Resources, P.R. China”. Prof. Kyoji Sassa is the Founding President of the International Consortium on Landslides(ICL). He is Executive Director of ICL and the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal“Landslides” since its foundation in 2004. IPL (International Programme on Landslides) is a programme of the ICL. The programme is managed by the IPL Global Promotion Committee including ICL and ICL supportingorganizations, UNESCO, WMO, FAO, UNISDR, UNU, ICSU, WFEO, IUGS and IUGG. TheIPL contributes to the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015-2025.
