scholarly journals Sensitivity analysis and calibration of a dynamic physically-based slope stability model

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Zieher ◽  
Martin Rutzinger ◽  
Barbara Schneider-Muntau ◽  
Frank Perzl ◽  
David Leidinger ◽  
...  

Abstract. Physically-based modelling of slope stability at catchment scale is still a challenging task. Applying a physically-based model at such scale (1 : 10,000 to 1 : 50,000), parameters with a high impact on the model result should be calibrated to account for (i) the spatial variability of parameter values, (ii) shortcomings of the selected model, (iii) uncertainties of laboratory tests and field measurements or (iv) if parameters cannot be derived experimentally or measured in the field (e.g. calibration constants). While systematic parameter calibration is a common task in hydrological modelling, this is rarely done using physically-based slope stability models. In the present study a dynamic physically-based coupled hydrological/geomechanical slope stability model is calibrated based on a limited number of laboratory tests and a detailed multi-temporal shallow landslide inventory covering two landslide-triggering rainfall events in the Laternser valley, Vorarlberg (Austria). Sensitive parameters are identified based on a local one-at-a-time sensitivity analysis. These parameters (hydraulic conductivity, specific storage, effective angle of internal friction, effective cohesion) are systematically sampled and calibrated for a landslide-triggering rainfall event in August 2005. The identified model ensemble including 25 behavioural model runs with the highest portion of correctly predicted landslides and non-landslides is then validated with another landslide-triggering rainfall event in May 1999. The identified model ensemble correctly predicts the location and the supposed triggering timing of 73.5 % of the observed landslides triggered in August 2005 and 91.5 % of the observed landslides triggered in May 1999. Results of the model ensemble driven with raised precipitation input reveal a slight increase in areas potentially affected by slope failure. At the same time, the peak runoff increases more markedly, suggesting that precipitation intensities during the investigated landslide-triggering rainfall events were already close to or above the soil's infiltration capacity.

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 971-992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Zieher ◽  
Martin Rutzinger ◽  
Barbara Schneider-Muntau ◽  
Frank Perzl ◽  
David Leidinger ◽  
...  

Abstract. Physically based modelling of slope stability on a catchment scale is still a challenging task. When applying a physically based model on such a scale (1 : 10 000 to 1 : 50 000), parameters with a high impact on the model result should be calibrated to account for (i) the spatial variability of parameter values, (ii) shortcomings of the selected model, (iii) uncertainties of laboratory tests and field measurements or (iv) parameters that cannot be derived experimentally or measured in the field (e.g. calibration constants). While systematic parameter calibration is a common task in hydrological modelling, this is rarely done using physically based slope stability models. In the present study a dynamic, physically based, coupled hydrological–geomechanical slope stability model is calibrated based on a limited number of laboratory tests and a detailed multitemporal shallow landslide inventory covering two landslide-triggering rainfall events in the Laternser valley, Vorarlberg (Austria). Sensitive parameters are identified based on a local one-at-a-time sensitivity analysis. These parameters (hydraulic conductivity, specific storage, angle of internal friction for effective stress, cohesion for effective stress) are systematically sampled and calibrated for a landslide-triggering rainfall event in August 2005. The identified model ensemble, including 25 behavioural model runs with the highest portion of correctly predicted landslides and non-landslides, is then validated with another landslide-triggering rainfall event in May 1999. The identified model ensemble correctly predicts the location and the supposed triggering timing of 73.0 % of the observed landslides triggered in August 2005 and 91.5 % of the observed landslides triggered in May 1999. Results of the model ensemble driven with raised precipitation input reveal a slight increase in areas potentially affected by slope failure. At the same time, the peak run-off increases more markedly, suggesting that precipitation intensities during the investigated landslide-triggering rainfall events were already close to or above the soil's infiltration capacity.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 4913-4931 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Peres ◽  
A. Cancelliere

Abstract. Assessment of landslide-triggering rainfall thresholds is useful for early warning in prone areas. In this paper, it is shown how stochastic rainfall models and hydrological and slope stability physically based models can be advantageously combined in a Monte Carlo simulation framework to generate virtually unlimited-length synthetic rainfall and related slope stability factor of safety data, exploiting the information contained in observed rainfall records and field-measurements of soil hydraulic and geotechnical parameters. The synthetic data set, dichotomized in triggering and non-triggering rainfall events, is analyzed by receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis to derive stochastic-input physically based thresholds that optimize the trade-off between correct and wrong predictions. Moreover, the specific modeling framework implemented in this work, based on hourly analysis, enables one to analyze the uncertainty related to variability of rainfall intensity within events and to past rainfall (antecedent rainfall). A specific focus is dedicated to the widely used power-law rainfall intensity–duration (I–D) thresholds. Results indicate that variability of intensity during rainfall events influences significantly rainfall intensity and duration associated with landslide triggering. Remarkably, when a time-variable rainfall-rate event is considered, the simulated triggering points may be separated with a very good approximation from the non-triggering ones by a I–D power-law equation, while a representation of rainfall as constant–intensity hyetographs globally leads to non-conservative results. This indicates that the I–D power-law equation is adequate to represent the triggering part due to transient infiltration produced by rainfall events of variable intensity and thus gives a physically based justification for this widely used threshold form, which provides results that are valid when landslide occurrence is mostly due to that part. These conditions are more likely to occur in hillslopes of low specific upslope contributing area, relatively high hydraulic conductivity and high critical wetness ratio. Otherwise, rainfall time history occurring before single rainfall events influences landslide triggering, determining whether a threshold based only on rainfall intensity and duration may be sufficient or it needs to be improved by the introduction of antecedent rainfall variables. Further analyses show that predictability of landslides decreases with soil depth, critical wetness ratio and the increase of vertical basal drainage (leakage) that occurs in the presence of a fractured bedrock.


Author(s):  
David J. Peres ◽  
Antonino Cancelliere ◽  
Roberto Greco ◽  
Thom A. Bogaard

Abstract. Uncertainty in rainfall datasets and landslide inventories is known to have negative impacts on the assessment of landslide–triggering thresholds. In this paper, we perform a quantitative analysis of the impacts that the uncertain knowledge of landslide initiation instants have on the assessment of landslide intensity–duration early warning thresholds. The analysis is based on an ideal synthetic database of rainfall and landslide data, generated by coupling a stochastic rainfall generator and a physically based hydrological and slope stability model. This dataset is then perturbed according to hypothetical reporting scenarios, that allow to simulate possible errors in landslide triggering instants, as derived from historical archives. The impact of these errors is analysed by combining different criteria to single-out rainfall events from a continuous series and different temporal aggregations of rainfall (hourly and daily). The analysis shows that the impacts of the above uncertainty sources can be significant. Errors influence thresholds in a way that they are generally underestimated. Potentially, the amount of the underestimation can be enough to induce an excessive number of false positives, hence limiting possible landslide mitigation benefits. Moreover, the uncertain knowledge of triggering rainfall, limits the possibility to set up links between thresholds and physio-geographical factors.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johnnatan Palacio Cordoba ◽  
Martin Mergili ◽  
Edier Aristizábal

Abstract. Landslides triggered by rainfall are very common phenomena in complex tropical environments such as the Colombian Andes, one of the regions most affected by landslides every year. Currently in Colombia, physically based methods for landslide hazard mapping are mandatory for land use planning in urban areas. In this work, we perform probabilistic analyses with r.slope.stability, a spatially distributed, physically based model for landslide susceptibility analysis, available as an open-source tool coupled to GRASS GIS. This model considers alternatively the infinite slope stability model or the 2.5D geometry of shallow planar and deep-seated landslides with ellipsoidal or truncated failure surfaces. We test the model in the La Arenosa catchment, northern Colombian Andes. The results are compared to those yielded with the corresponding deterministic analyses and with other physically based models applied in the same catchment. Finally, the model results are evaluated against a landslide inventory using a confusion matrix and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis. The model performs reasonably well, the infinite slope stability model showing a better performance. The outcomes are, however, rather conservative, pointing to possible challenges with regard to the geotechnical and geo-hydraulic parameterization. The results also highlight the importance to perform probabilistic instead of – or in addition to – deterministic slope stability analyses.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Rossi ◽  
F. Catani ◽  
L. Leoni ◽  
S. Segoni ◽  
V. Tofani

Abstract. HIRESSS (HIgh REsolution Slope Stability Simulator) is a physically based distributed slope stability simulator for analyzing shallow landslide triggering conditions in real time and on large areas using parallel computational techniques. The physical model proposed is composed of two parts: hydrological and geotechnical. The hydrological model receives the rainfall data as dynamical input and provides the pressure head as perturbation to the geotechnical stability model that computes the factor of safety (FS) in probabilistic terms. The hydrological model is based on an analytical solution of an approximated form of the Richards equation under the wet condition hypothesis and it is introduced as a modeled form of hydraulic diffusivity to improve the hydrological response. The geotechnical stability model is based on an infinite slope model that takes into account the unsaturated soil condition. During the slope stability analysis the proposed model takes into account the increase in strength and cohesion due to matric suction in unsaturated soil, where the pressure head is negative. Moreover, the soil mass variation on partially saturated soil caused by water infiltration is modeled. The model is then inserted into a Monte Carlo simulation, to manage the typical uncertainty in the values of the input geotechnical and hydrological parameters, which is a common weak point of deterministic models. The Monte Carlo simulation manages a probability distribution of input parameters providing results in terms of slope failure probability. The developed software uses the computational power offered by multicore and multiprocessor hardware, from modern workstations to supercomputing facilities (HPC), to achieve the simulation in reasonable runtimes, compatible with civil protection real time monitoring. A first test of HIRESSS in three different areas is presented to evaluate the reliability of the results and the runtime performance on large areas.


2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 81-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. B. Crosta ◽  
P. Frattini

Abstract. Hazard assessment of shallow landslides represents an important aspect of land management in mountainous areas. Among all the methods proposed in the literature, physically based methods are the only ones that explicitly includes the dynamic factors that control landslide triggering (rainfall pattern, land-use). For this reason, they allow forecasting both the temporal and the spatial distribution of shallow landslides. Physically based methods for shallow landslides are based on the coupling of the infinite slope stability analysis with hydrological models. Three different grid-based distributed hydrological models are presented in this paper: a steady state model, a transient "piston-flow" wetting front model, and a transient diffusive model. A comparative test of these models was performed to simulate landslide occurred during a rainfall event (27–28 June 1997) that triggered hundreds of shallow landslides within Lecco province (central Southern Alps, Italy). In order to test the potential for a completely distributed model for rainfall-triggered landslides, radar detected rainfall intensity has been used. A new procedure for quantitative evaluation of distributed model performance is presented and used in this paper. The diffusive model results in the best model for the simulation of shallow landslide triggering after a rainfall event like the one that we have analysed. Finally, radar data available for the June 1997 event permitted greatly improving the simulation. In particular, radar data allowed to explain the non-uniform distribution of landslides within the study area.


2018 ◽  
Vol 147 ◽  
pp. 07001
Author(s):  
Najib ◽  
Agus Setyawan ◽  
Dwiyanto Joko Suprapto

Kedung Uling earthfill dam locates at Wonogiri Regency, Central Java, Indonesia. The dam encountered sliding and settlement at the embankment wall. To minimize sliding and settlement and to optimize the dam, both field investigation and laboratory tests have been proceeded for slope stability analysis and remedial embankment wall. Soil and rock investigation around the dam, which is followed by 10 core drillings, have been conducted. Laboratory tests such as direct shear and index properties have also been carried on. The results were further used for dam slope stability model using slide 6.0 and were used to analyzed factor of safety (FS) of Kedunguling dam. 10 conditions of dam were simulated and strengthening body of dam with grouting was designed. The results showed two conditions, which are condition of maximum water level with and without earthquake at downstream, were unsatisfy Indonesia National Standard (SNI) for building and infrastructure. These conditions can be managed by using grouting for increasing stabilization of embankment wall. By setting up grouting, factor of safety increases and meet the SNI standard requirement.


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