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Field testing of erodibility of two landslide dams triggered by the 12 May Wenchuan earthquake

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Abstract

A strong earthquake of magnitude 8 in Richter scale, occurred in Sichuan Province, China on 12 May 2008, triggered about 257 landslide dams. The erodibility of fresh landslide deposits plays an important role in evaluating the initiation and development of breaching of such landslide dams. In this research, field jet index tests were conducted shortly after the earthquake at 27 locations on the Hongshihe landslide dam and the Libaisi landslide dam. The purpose of these tests was to investigate the erodibility of freshly deposited landslide soils. The landslide deposits are broadly graded. The bulk density increases and the coefficient of erodibility decreases with the depth of deposition. The erodibility of the fresh landslide deposits falls into a moderately resistant category and the fresh deposits are much more erodible than the native geomaterials before the earthquake. The main factors that control soil erodibility are found to be grain-size distribution, void ratio, fines content, and plasticity index. Particularly, the coefficient of erodibility decreases exponentially with the degree of compaction. Two empirical equations are developed for estimating the coefficient of erodibility and critical erosive shear stress of the freshly deposited landslide soils based on their basic soil properties.

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Acknowledgments

The research was substantially supported by the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection (DZJK-0815), the Ministry of Sience and Technology 2009BAK56B05) and the Research Grants Council of the HKSAR (No. 622207). Special thanks are due to Prof. Bixiong Li and Prof. Qun Chen of Sichuan University for their kind assistance during the field tests in the Wenchuan earthquake zone.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong

    D. S. Chang, L. M. Zhang & Y. Xu

  2. China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, China

    Y. Xu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, Sichuan, China

    R. Q. Huang

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  1. D. S. Chang
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  2. L. M. Zhang
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  3. Y. Xu
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  4. R. Q. Huang
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Correspondence to L. M. Zhang.

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Chang, D.S., Zhang, L.M., Xu, Y. et al. Field testing of erodibility of two landslide dams triggered by the 12 May Wenchuan earthquake. Landslides 8, 321–332 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-011-0256-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-011-0256-x

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