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An empirical model for landslide travel distance prediction in Wenchuan earthquake area

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Abstract

Sliding mass of landslides highly endangered the area along travel path, especially landslides with long travel distance. It is necessary to develop an effective prediction model for preliminarily evaluating landslide travel distance so as to improve disaster prevention and relocation. This paper collected 54 landslides with 347–4,170 m travel distance triggered by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake to discuss the effectiveness of various influential factors on landslide travel distance and obtained an empirical model for its prediction. The results revealed that rock type, sliding source volume, and slope transition angle were the predominant factors on landslide travel distance. The validity of proposed model was verified by the satisfactory agreement between observations and predictions. Therefore, this model might be practically applicable in Wenchuan earthquake area and other similar geomorphological and geological regions.

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Acknowledgments

China Scholarship Council is deeply appreciated for supporting the first author to pursue his Ph.D. in Waseda University. The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by the Joint Fund of National Natural Science Foundation of China and High-speed Railway (no.U1134208), National Science and Technology Support Program (no.2012BAG05B03) and the National Basic Research (973) Program of China (no. 2010CB732105). The authors thank the reviewers and Dr. Liao for giving good comments to this paper. Anonymous researchers who timely conducted field survey after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake were sincerely appreciated, and also, deep gratitude to the researchers who published their investigation results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Transportation Tunnel Engineering, Ministry of Education, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, China

    Deping Guo, Chuan He & Yulin Zou

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Waseda University, 3-4-1Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 169-8555, Japan

    Deping Guo & Masanori Hamada

  3. Department of Geological Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, China

    Yufeng Wang

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  1. Deping Guo
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  2. Masanori Hamada
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  3. Chuan He
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  4. Yufeng Wang
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  5. Yulin Zou
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Correspondence to Deping Guo.

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Guo, D., Hamada, M., He, C. et al. An empirical model for landslide travel distance prediction in Wenchuan earthquake area. Landslides 11, 281–291 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-013-0444-y

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