Investigations on the Stability of the Right Slope in the Area of Anina Wastewater Treatment Plant

Often, excavations of natural slopes are necessary in the site area for the construction of civil or industrial objectives. The execution of such works requires special attention, from the design phase, regarding the stability of the slope in the initial state, but also after excavation and identification, if necessary, of technical solutions to increase the stability reserve, thus ensuring the security during the execution of works but also of future constructions. Such a situation was encountered in the case of Anina Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), when, in the absence of proper investigations of the slope to be excavated, there was a landslide that interrupted the site activities, and which, to some extent, jeopardized the objectives already built. In this context, at the level of 2015, slope stabilization works were designed and executed, works that proved to be insufficient. In 2021, it was necessary to conduct a new stability study in order to analyze the possibilities of continuing the construction of the treatment plant. This paper presents the results obtained during this study, as well as a series of conclusions and interpretations, regarding the technical condition of the slope in different hypotheses.

Self-AdaptIve LOcal Relief Enhancer (SAILORE): A New Filter to Improve Local Relief Model Performances According to Local Topography

The use of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is becoming more and more common in different landscape exploration domains such as archaeology or geomorphology. In order to allow the detection of features of interest, visualization filters have to be applied to the raw Digital Elevation Model (DEM), to enhance small relief variations. Several filters have been proposed for this purpose, such as Sky View Factor, Slope, negative and positive Openness, or Local Relief Model (LRM). The efficiency of each of these methods is strongly dependent on the input parameters chosen in regard of the topography of the investigated area. The LRM has proved to be one of the most efficient, but it has to be parameterized in order to be adapted to the natural slopes characterizing the investigated area. Generally, this setting has a single value, chosen as the best compromise between optimal values for each relief configuration. As LiDAR is mainly used in wide areas, a large distribution of natural slopes is often encountered. The aim of this paper is to propose a Self AdaptIve LOcal Relief Enhancer (SAILORE) based on the Local Relief Model approach. The filtering effect is adapted to the local slope, allowing the detection at the same time of low-frequency relief variation on flat areas, as well as the identification of high-frequency relief variation in the presence of steep slopes. First, the interest of this self-adaptive approach is presented, and the principle of the method, compared to the classical LRM method, is described. This new tool is then applied to a LiDAR dataset characterized by various terrain configurations in order to test its performance and compare it with the classical LRM. The results of this test show that SAILORE significantly increases the detection capability while simplifying it.

Greek Sanctuaries and Stadia

The stadium (stadion) included the racecourse proper (dromos; of 600 feet) and the spectator area. Originally using natural slopes for onlookers, the stadia became more elaborate, with stone seating and complex starting lines (husplyges), in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The second-century-bce stadium-cum-theatre at Pergamon is of special note, resembling in concept the fourth-century-bce structure on the Pnyx in Athens. Other stadia surveyed here are at Messene (Peloponnese) and Aphrodisias (Caria). Water channels allowed the track to be watered to avoid hardening. A 100-foot-square (plethron) space was used for field events. Most stadia had formal entrances, some using vaulted ‘tunnels’ (Olympia, Nemea, Delphi, and Epidauros). The history of certain stadia is traced: Olympia, Corinth, Halieis, Mt Lykaion (a hippodrome-cum-stadium), Rome (stadium of Domitian), Isthmia, Nemea, Delphi, and facilities at some civic and rural sanctuaries.

Calculation Method of Fastening the Upper Slope of the Land Bund for Erosion and Strength

To protect the slopes of the ground dam from the devastating effects of wind waves, ice, water flow, precipitation and other factors, a number of engineering measures are provided. Based on this, an engineering decision is taken on the choice of materials for fastening structures, as well as methods for calculating their stability. When calculating the stability of the upper slope, two cases of a combination of loads and impacts are mainly considered. One of them is the reduction of the water level in the reservoir with maximum speed, and the other is the case when the water level in the reservoir is at the lowest operational level. The article investigates the processes of sliding of natural slopes of the upstream dam. Taking into account the combined action of the forces of filtering, weighing and vapor pressure, as well as the force of hydrostatic pressure to the level of dead volume. The equation for the stability coefficient of a circular-cylindrical slip of a uniform natural slope of the upstream dam has been obtained.

Slope movement hazards of the mining-dumps in the Dorog Basin, Hungary

<p>The Dorog Basin was a mining area in northern central Hungary for more than two centuries. Tunnel mining and quarrying of Eocene coal was the main industrial activity in the basin from the mid-19<sup>th</sup> century until the late 1990s. Extensive quarrying of the Cretaceous marl and Triassic limestone for the cement industry is also present in the area, along with pits of sand and fire clay and travertine quarries. Though the waste treatment is controlled by law and strict directives, the morphology and the material characteristics of the waste heaps are often enough to increase the chance of slope failures. As the mining waste heaps and tailings are often adjacent to residential and agricultural areas, they are considered as hazard sources. The combined use of remote sensing and machine learning methods can help to evaluate the stability of the waste heaps and select the sites where further hazard assessment is needed on the field.</p><p>The slopes of the area were sorted into six stability categories (scarps, transitional slopes, debris, low-lying accumulation areas, hilltops, stabile slopes) with random forest machine learning classification. The sample areas for the analysis were selected based on geomorphological mapping in the area and the re-evaluation of the recorded landslides from the landslide inventory. The classifier (Rstudio) analysed one lithological and two to six morphometric predictor variables. We tested several sets of different variables and selected the best performing set, which included the slope angle, profile curvature, TWI, mean upslope area, and the normalized height morphometric indices.</p><p>After the classification, the distribution of the stability categories was computed for three different areas: the mining waste heaps, the remediated quarries, and the natural slopes. The mining waste sites and the quarries were delineated using the national mining waste inventory, satellite images and topographic maps. Then a likelihood ratio analysis was done to calculate the relative frequencies of the stability categories in the different area types. It was expected that the stability category representing the slope debris at rest will be the most frequent in the waste heap areas. The statistical analysis reinforced this hypothesis by resulting a 54% larger likelihood compared to the natural slopes. It was also revealed that the most dangerous category, the scarps, are less likely on the waste heaps than on the natural slopes, which is a reassuring result. However, the transitional types (slopes that are still in movement) are more likely by 25% on the waste heaps. Even this slightly increased likelihood makes the local villages more prone to hazardous events, so an increased concern is also justified.</p><p>From the part of G.A. financial support was provided from the NRDI Fund of Hungary, Thematic Excellence Programme no. TKP2020-NKA-06 (National Challenges Subprogramme) funding scheme. D. G.: The study was supported by the ÚNKP-19-3 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology, Hungary.</p>

Slope stability analyses by circular failure chart and limit equilibrium methods: the inlet and outlet of diversion tunnel of Bolango Ulu Dam, Indonesia

The objective of this research is to evaluate the stability of the natural slopes at the inlet and outlet portals of the Bolangu Ulu diversion tunnel, Gorontalo. The natural slopes were considered stable, and therefore slope stability analyses were not carried out previously in the tunnel portal design. The slope stability analyses were carried out using the Circular Failure Chart (CFC) and Limit Equilibrium Methods (LEM). Input data for the slope stability analyses were obtained from field mapping and laboratory testing of soil and rock samples. The results show that the portal slopes consist of diorite and residual soil. Both stability analysis methods yield nearly the same results. The slope at the outlet section had the factor of safety (FOS) values of 1.29 and 1.30 based on the CFC method and LEM, respectively, indicating the slope in a stable condition. However, the slope at the inlet section had the FOS values of 1.01 and 1.07 based on the CFC method and LEM, respectively, indicating the slope in a critical condition. The results suggest that stabilization of the portal slopes, particularly the portal slope at the inlet section, is required to prevent slope failures under static and earthquake loads.

The layout peculiarities of the residential and production areas in the site of ancient settlement of Ushbastobe (Southern Kazakhstan)

This article deals with the planning structure of the site of ancient settlement of Ushbastobe in southern Kazakhstan, dated to the 2nd–5th centuries AD. The settlement is located on the tall cape of the Ugam river bank and con- sists of a citadel and a residential area (rabad). Natural slopes of the river terrace and a steep ravine made the settlement impregnable from the two sides; the other two were bounded by moats. In addition to the residential part, a production area has been revealed between the two southeastern moats where an iron-smelting furnace has been studied. The results of this study allow the authors to maintain that the fortified settlement not only controlled a passage to the fertile river valley but was also an important center for the primary smelting of bloom iron in the region.