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Water Exfiltration from Bedrock: A Drastic Landslide Triggering Mechanism

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Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk (WLF 2020)

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Abstract

Landslides triggered through hydraulic perturbations are initiated by a decrease in the effective stresses, and hence the mobilised shear strength of the soil, as a result of the increase in the pore water pressure. This may occur either due to rain infiltration or to exfiltration of water from the bedrock into the slope. Although numerous investigations have been conducted to study the first triggering mechanism (rain infiltration), less attention has been devoted to the latter (exfiltration of water from the bedrock). This paper presents the results of a full-scale landslide triggering experiment, which has been carried out on a natural slope in Northern Switzerland, with emphasis on the observations and measurements regarding exfiltration of water from the bedrock. A series of centrifuge tests was also performed to study the effect of the hydro-geological interactions of the bedrock with the overlying soil mantle on the stability of the slope. Moreover, the behaviour of the full-scale test slope prior to the failure induced by the artificial rainfall event, and/or water exfiltration from the bedrock, was investigated using coupled hydro-mechanical numerical methods. The results of both physical and numerical modelling confirm the importance of the exfiltration from bedrock in triggering of landslides.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partially funded by the Competence Centre for Environment and Sustainability (CCES) within the framework of the TRAMM–Project. Additional resources were provided by the ETH Research Fund and EU project SafeLand (EU FP7 grant agreement no. 226479). The authors are very grateful to the Ruedlingen Council, and communities of Ruedlingen and Buchberg. Ms. Cornelia Malecki, Dr. Francesca Casini, Dr. Peter Kienzler, Dr. Jan Laue, Dr. Cornelia Brönnimann, Ernst Bleiker, Markus Iten, Heinz Buschor, and Felix Wietlisbach are thanked for their valuable contributions to this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, TU Delft, 2600 GA Delft, PO-box 5048, Delft, The Netherlands

    Amin Askarinejad

  2. IGT, ETH Zurich, Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland

    Sarah M. Springman

Authors
  1. Amin Askarinejad
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  2. Sarah M. Springman
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Correspondence to Amin Askarinejad .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia

    Željko Arbanas

  2. Geological Survey of Canada, Sidney, BC, Canada

    Peter T. Bobrowsky

  3. International Consortium on Landslides, Kyoto, Japan

    Kazuo Konagai

  4. International Consortium on Landslides, Kyoto University, Uji Campus, Kyoto, Japan

    Kyoji Sassa

  5. Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability (Shishu-kan), Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Kaoru Takara

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Askarinejad, A., Springman, S.M. (2021). Water Exfiltration from Bedrock: A Drastic Landslide Triggering Mechanism. In: Arbanas, Ž., Bobrowsky, P.T., Konagai, K., Sassa, K., Takara, K. (eds) Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk. WLF 2020. ICL Contribution to Landslide Disaster Risk Reduction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60713-5_10

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