A Geomechanical Approach to Landslide Hazard Assessment: The Multiscalar Method for Landslide Mitigation (original) (raw)

From a phenomenological to a geomechanical approach to landslide hazard analysis

European Journal of Environmental and Civil Engineering, 2014

The diagnosis of landsliding at the slope scale resulted from synergic geohydromechanical analyses of the slope factors, which should represent the first step to assess landslide hazard. According to the methodological approach discussed in the paper, the landslide hazard analysis should start from a phenomenological interpretation of the slope behaviour, including the definition of the slope factors, getting then to a quantitative prediction of the slope evolution with time. This quantitative evaluation should result from limit equilibrium analyses and numerical modelling, both of them performed considering the outcomes of the phenomenological reconstruction. Therefore, the understanding of the slope factors and of the landslide mechanism at the slope scale should drive the landslide hazard assessment, through analyses performed for different levels of diagnosis (phenomenological, analytical and numerical). Some landslides, representative for chain slopes in the Italian peninsula, are discussed in the paper in order to show the maturity of the geohydromechanical diagnosis of landslide hazard and, hence, to properly design the mitigation actions. A methodology for intermediate to regional landslide hazard assessment, based on geomechanical interpretations, is finally proposed.

Landslide hazard assessment and judgment of reliability: a geomechanical approach

Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment, 2016

Landslide hazard maps are often defined as reliable a posteriori, in accordance with the real landslides occurring from the time of the map production. However, to be useful for planning, a reliability judgment concerning the hazard mapping should be a priori, based on data uncertainty characterization, and must be driven by the knowledge of the slope instability mechanisms. The landslide hazard assessment, when based on the deterministic diagnosis of the processes, may really lead to really providing clues about how and why the slope could fail (landslide susceptibility) and, possibly, when (landslide hazard). Such deterministic assessment can be pursued only through the interpretation and the geo-hydro-mechanical modelling of the slope equilibrium. In practice, though, the landslide hazard assessment is still seldom dealt with slope modelling, in particular when it addresses intermediate to regional zoning. The paper firstly offers an overview of the key steps of a methodology called the multiscalar method for landslide mitigation, MMLM, which that is a methodological approach for the intermediate to regional landslide hazard assessment using the hydro-mechanical diagnoses of landsliding. The validation of the MMLM to the geologically complex outer sectors of the Southern Apennines (Daunia-Lucanian mountains; Italy) is also delineated, together with a practical approach to incorporate a reliability judgment in the landslide susceptibility/hazard mapping.

Geomechanics of hazardous landslides

Journal of Mountain Science, 2005

A catalogue of possible landslide initial failure mechanisms, taking into account the geological setting and the geometry of the slope, the joint structure, the habitus of the rock blocks, as well as the mechanical behaviour of the rocks and of the rock mass (deformation and strength parameters), is presented. Its aim is to give geologists as well as engineers the opportunity to compare phenomena in the field and phenomena belonging to particular mechanisms and to find the mechanism occurring. The presented catalogue of initial landslide mechanisms only comprises the mechanisms having a clearly defined mechanical model that can be divided into empirical relations and into mechanical models, as well as an overview of run out models, which can be divided into empirical relations and into mechanical models.

Introduction to the special issue “Landslides: forecasting, hazard evaluation, and risk mitigation”

Natural Hazards, 2012

The papers collected in this special issue of Natural Hazards were originally presented as oral or poster contributions in the sessions ''Innovative approaches for evaluation of the landslide hazard and mitigation of the landslide risk'' and ''Landslide forecasting'', which were part of the scientific program of the Geoitalia 2009 meeting, the 7th Italian Forum of the Earth Sciences, held in Rimini, Italy, from 9 to 11 September 2009. The eighteen papers comprising the special issue of Natural Hazards discuss topics related to techniques, tools, and methods for landslide identification, forecasting, hazard evaluation, and the mitigation of landslide risk. The issue opens with the two keynote lectures invited in the sessions: in the first keynote, Jaboyedoff and co-workers review the application of light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology for landslide investigation, including the study of slides, rockfalls, and debris flows. The authors discuss critically the application of LIDAR very-high-resolution terrain elevation data for the detection and characterization of landslides, for hazard assessment and susceptibility modeling, and for landslide monitoring and modeling. In the second keynote, Günther and co-workers, discuss a GIS-based deterministic approach for the spatial evaluation of the geometrical and kinematical properties of rock slopes. Based on spatially distributed directional information on planar geological fabrics, and DEM-derived topographic attributes, the internal geometry of the rock slopes is characterized. The obtained information, in combination with hydraulic and strength data on the geological discontinuities, can be used to prepare scenario-based rock-slope stability evaluations, at different geographical scales.

Landslide Hazard and Risk Management (WCoE 2014–2017)

Springer eBooks, 2017

The World Centre of Excellence (WCoE) on Landslide Risk Reduction entitled "Landslide risk assessment and development guidelines for effective risk reduction" (2014-2017) was designed to contribute to the risk reduction effort formulated in the Sendai Partnership initiative. Several research activities were developed and their results were presented to a broad public through a series of articles, informative web pages and documentary movies. The research focused on improving landslide hazard assessment in a variety of natural environments, including deep-seated as well as shallow landslides. Landslide hazard assessment was applied practically through development projects in Ethiopia and Peru. Within the scope of the WCoE we proposed and conducted two projects of the International Program on Landslides (IPL). One of them is dedicated to compilation and analysis of glacial lake outburst floods (Database of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs)-project No. 179) at the global level. This potentially highly damaging natural phenomenon combines characteristics offloods and debris flows and often also involves landslides in the initiation process. The other IPL project focuses on the main challenges of landslide risk reduction in the Czech Republic (Challenges for landslide hazard and risk management in "low risk" regions, Czech Republic, IPL project No. 197), which is a country with abundant landslide-related knowledge and rather low annual occurrence frequencies. Despite that, landslides cause considerable damage and financial losses, which often could be prevented if the available hazard information were to be used.