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landslide

A landslide is the rapid movement of rock, earth, or debris down a slope, occurring when gravitational forces exceed the slope's resistance. Factors such as heavy rainfall, erosion, and earthquakes can trigger landslides, which are classified into falls, topples, slides, and flows. Mitigation techniques include geometric, hydrogeological, and chemical methods to stabilize slopes and reduce the risk of landslides.

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29 views

landslide

A landslide is the rapid movement of rock, earth, or debris down a slope, occurring when gravitational forces exceed the slope's resistance. Factors such as heavy rainfall, erosion, and earthquakes can trigger landslides, which are classified into falls, topples, slides, and flows. Mitigation techniques include geometric, hydrogeological, and chemical methods to stabilize slopes and reduce the risk of landslides.

Uploaded by

Sayan Das
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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LANDSLIDE

What is a landslide?

A landslide is a mass movement of material, such as rock, earth, or debris, down a slope. They can
happen suddenly or more slowly over long periods. When the force of gravity acting on a slope
exceeds the resisting forces of a hill, the slope will fail and a landslide will occur. External factors can
lead to landslides, including heavy rainfall leading to saturation of the ground, erosion of the base of a
slope, and changes to the material’s strength through weathering.

Landslides are classified by their type of movement. The four main types of movement are:

1. Falls
2. Topples
3. Slides (rotational and translational)
4. Flows

Landslides can be classified as just one of these movements or, more commonly, a mixture of several.

Why do landslides happen?

Landslides occur when the slope (or a portion of it) undergoes some processes that change its
condition from stable to unstable. This is essentially due to a decrease in the shear strength of the
slope material, an increase in the shear stress borne by the material, or a combination of the two. A
change in the stability of a slope can be caused by several factors, acting together or alone. Natural
causes of landslides include:

1. Saturation by rainwater infiltration, snow melting, or glaciers melting.

2. Rising of groundwater or increase of pore water pressure (e.g. due to aquifer recharge in
rainy seasons, or by rainwater infiltration).

3. Increase of hydrostatic pressure in cracks and fractures.

4. Loss or absence of vertical vegetative structure, soil nutrients, and soil structure (e.g.
after a wildfire – a forest fire lasting for 3–4 days).

5. Erosion of the top of a slope by rivers or sea waves.

6. Physical and chemical weathering (e.g., by repeated freezing and thawing, heating and
cooling, salt leaking in the groundwater, or mineral dissolution).

7. Ground shaking is caused by earthquakes, which can destabilize the slope directly (e.g.,
by inducing soil liquefaction) or weaken the material and cause cracks that will
eventually produce a landslide.

8. Volcanic eruptions

What can increase the chance of a landslide?

Several factors can increase a slope’s susceptibility to a landslide event:


1. Water: Adding water to the material on a slope makes a landslide more likely to happen. This
is because water adds weight, lowers the strength of the material, and reduces friction, making
it easier for the material to move downslope.
2. Erosion processes: If the bottom of a slope is continually eroded, for example by the sea or a
river, the slope will eventually become too steep to hold itself up.
3. Slope angle (steepness of slope): the slope angle is a key factor as far as landslides are
concerned. Any change to this that makes it steeper (such as coastal erosion) increases the
likelihood of a landslide.
4. Rock type: the type of rocks in the slope, and their combination, can increase the chance of a
landslide.
5. Grain shape: the shape of the grains that make up a rock can affect the risk of a landslide.
6. Jointing and orientation of bedding planes.
7. Arrangement of the rock layers.
8. Weathering processes: for example, freeze-thaw reduces the cohesion (‘stickiness’) between
the rock grains.
9. Vegetation: vegetation helps bind the material together; removing vegetation increases the
chance of a landslide.
10. Flooding.
11. Volcanoes and earthquake activity nearby.
12. Human activity: mining, traffic vibrations, or urbanization changes surface water drainage
patterns.

Effects of Landslide:

1. Rapidly moving water and debris that can lead to trauma.


2. Broken electrical, water, gas, and sewage lines that can result in injury or illness.
3. Disrupted roadways and railways that can endanger motorists and disrupt transport and access
to health care.

Landslide classification with neat sketch: Landslides are classified by their type of movement. The
main types of movement are falls, topples, slides, and flows.

Falls: Falls are sudden movements of loads of soil, debris, and rock that break away from slopes and
cliffs. It occurs as a result of mechanical weathering, earthquakes, and the force of gravity.

Slides: This is a kind of mass movement whereby the sliding material breaks away from the
underlying stable material.

Topples: Topple failure encompasses the forward spinning and movement of huge masses of rock,
debris, and earth from a slope. This type of slope failure takes place around an axis near or at the
bottom of the block of rock.

Flows: This type of landslide is categorized into five; earth flows, debris avalanches, debris flow,
mudflows, and creep, which include seasonal, continuous, and progressive.
Fig: Classification of Landslide

Land Slide Mitigation Techniques:


Landslide mitigation refers to several man-made activities on slopes to lessen the effect
of landslides. Landslides can be triggered by many, sometimes concomitant causes. In addition to
shallow erosion or reduction of shear strength caused by seasonal rainfall, landslides may be triggered
by anthropic activities, such as adding excessive weight above the slope and digging at mid-slope or
the foot of the slope. Often, individual phenomena join together to generate instability over time,
which often does not allow a reconstruction of the evolution of a particular landslide. Therefore,
landslide hazard mitigation measures are not generally classified according to the phenomenon that
might cause a landslide.[1] Instead, they are classified by the sort of slope stabilization method used:

 Geometric methods, in which the geometry of the hillside is changed (in general the
slope);
 Hydrogeological methods, in which an attempt is made to lower the groundwater level or
to reduce the water content of the material
 Chemical and mechanical methods, in which attempts are made to increase the shear
strength of the unstable mass or to introduce active external forces (e.g. anchors, rock, or
ground nailing) or passive (e.g. structural wells, piles, or reinforced ground) to counteract
the destabilizing forces.

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