Keywords
rainfall, shallow landslides, flow-type, triangular source areas, avalanche
Start Date
1-7-2008 12:00 AM
Abstract
Landslides of the flow-type are frequently triggered by rainfall as shallowlandslides in different types of soils and geo-environmental contexts. When involving openslopes, these landslides often occur in triangular source areas where initial slides turn intoavalanches through further failures and/or eventual soil entrainment. Similar phenomenaare frequently observed in layered snow deposits and they are also recognised in ashydeposits on Mars. Significant examples are systematically recorded in Southern Italy wherepyroclastic deposits overlie carbonate massifs. Particularly, in May 1998, rainfall triggeredmany destructive triangular shallow landslides of the flow-type along the slopes of Pizzod’Alvano massif (Sarno-Quindici event). The available data-set allowed their failure andpost-failure stages to be modelled. Numerical analyses were performed using limitequilibrium as well as hydro-mechanical coupled and uncoupled stress-strain approaches.The obtained results are discussed in the paper, providing a preliminary framework for thistype of slope instability phenomena that is poorly addressed in the current literature.
Geomechanical modelling of triggering mechanisms for rainfall-induced triangular shallow landslides of the flow-type
Landslides of the flow-type are frequently triggered by rainfall as shallowlandslides in different types of soils and geo-environmental contexts. When involving openslopes, these landslides often occur in triangular source areas where initial slides turn intoavalanches through further failures and/or eventual soil entrainment. Similar phenomenaare frequently observed in layered snow deposits and they are also recognised in ashydeposits on Mars. Significant examples are systematically recorded in Southern Italy wherepyroclastic deposits overlie carbonate massifs. Particularly, in May 1998, rainfall triggeredmany destructive triangular shallow landslides of the flow-type along the slopes of Pizzod’Alvano massif (Sarno-Quindici event). The available data-set allowed their failure andpost-failure stages to be modelled. Numerical analyses were performed using limitequilibrium as well as hydro-mechanical coupled and uncoupled stress-strain approaches.The obtained results are discussed in the paper, providing a preliminary framework for thistype of slope instability phenomena that is poorly addressed in the current literature.
