Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Influences of soil water characteristic curve on rainfall-induced shallow landslides

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Environmental Earth Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The analysis of slope instability induced by rainfall was usually performed using the main drying curve as the measurement of the main wetting curve is a more time-consuming and costly task. In this study, the influences of the main drying and wetting curves on rainfall-induced shallow landslides are examined. Three designed scenarios and a real case scenario are used to conduct this examination. The prediction of shallow landslide occurrence is related to the main drying and wetting curves due to the strong relation between groundwater pressure head and hysteresis effect. The main wetting curve may have a less minimum landslide-triggering rainfall amount and a less rainfall duration threshold for landslide occurrence than the drying wetting curve. For safety’s sake, an underestimation of shallow landslide occurrence may be produced by the commonly used main drying curve. In addition, besides the shallow landslide occurrence, the failure depth and the time to failure are also influenced by the main drying and wetting curves. The hysteresis effect should be taken into account for assessing rainfall-induced shallow landslides.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11

Similar content being viewed by others

Abbreviations

C :

The change in volumetric water content per unit change in pressure head

c′:

Effective cohesion

d Z :

Water depth

d LZ :

Slope depth

FS:

Factor of safety

G s :

The specific gravity of soil solid

I Z :

Rainfall intensity

K s :

Saturated hydraulic conductivity

K L :

Hydraulic conductivity in lateral direction (x and y)

K z :

Hydraulic conductivities in slope-normal direction (z)

RS:

The resisting stress

S :

The degree of saturation

SS:

The sliding stress

S r :

The residual degree of saturation

S e :

The effective saturation

M :

Shape parameter

N :

Shape parameter

T :

Rainfall duration

u a :

Pore air pressure

u w :

Pore water pressure

Z:

The coordinates

σ :

Total normal stress

ψ :

Groundwater pressure head

θ :

Soil volumetric water content

θ s :

Saturated volumetric water content

θ r :

Residual volumetric water content

α :

Slope angle

ϕ′:

Effective friction angle

ξ :

Shape parameter

ξ d :

Shape parameter in main drying curve

ξ w :

Shape parameter in main wetting curve

χ :

Effective stress parameter

\( \overline{\gamma } \) :

The depth-averaged unit weight of soil

γ w :

The unit weight of water

References

  • Anderson MG, Howes S (1985) Development of application of a combined soil water-slope stability model. Q J Eng Geol Lond 18:225–236

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baum RL, Savage WZ, Godt JW (2002) TRIGRS—a Fortran program for transient rainfall infiltration and grid-based regional slope-stability analysis, Virginia, US Geological Survey Open file report 02-424

  • Bear J (1972) Dynamics of fluids in porous media. Dover, Mineola

    Google Scholar 

  • Bishop AW (1954) The use of pore pressure coefficients in practice. Geotechnique 4:148–152

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borga M, Fontana GD, De Ros D, Marchi L (1998) Shallow landslide hazard assessment using a physically based model and digital elevation data. Environ Geol 35:81–88

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Celia MA, Bouloutas ET, Zarba RL (1990) A general mass-conservation numerical solution for the unsaturated flow equation. Water Resour Res 26(7):1483–1496

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen B (2005) A study on characteristics and hazard assessment of landslides in Shihmen Reservoir watershed, northern Taiwan. Ph. D. thesis, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan

  • Collins BD, Znidarcic D (2004) Stability analyses of rainfall induced landslides. J Geotech Geoenviron Eng 130(4):362–372

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crosta GB, Frattini P (2003) Distributed modeling of shallow landslides triggered by intense rainfall. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 3:81–93

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D’Odorico P, Fagherazzi S, Rigon R (2005) Potential for landsliding: dependence on hyetograph characteristics. J Geophys Res Earth Surf 110(F1)

  • Elmaloglou S, Diamantopoulos E (2008) The effect of hysteresis on three-dimensional transient water flow during surface trickle irrigation. Irrigation Drainage 57:57–70

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Escario V, Juca J, Coppe MS (1989) Strength and deformation of partly saturated soils. In: Proceeding of 12th international conference on soil mechanics and foundation engineering, Rio de Janeiro, vol 3, pp 43–46

  • Frattini P, Crosta GB, Fusi N, Negro PD (2004) Shallow landslides in pyroclastic soil: a distributed modeling approach for hazard assessment. Eng Geol 73:277–295

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fredlund DG, Morgenstern NR, Widger RA (1978) The shear strength of unsaturated soils. Can Geotech J 15:313–321

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gan JK, Fredlund DG, Rahardjo H (1988) Determination of the shear strength parameters of an unsaturated soil using the direct shear test. Can Geotech J 25:500–510

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsu SH, Ni CF, Hung PF (2002) Assessment of three infiltration formulas based on model fitting on Richards’ equation. J Hydrol Eng 7(5):373–379

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hurley DG, Pantelis G (1985) Unsaturated and saturated flow through a thin porous layer on a hillslope. Water Resour Res 21:821–824

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Iverson RM (2000) Landslide triggering by rain infiltration. Water Resour Res 36:1897–1910

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jaynes DB (1984) Comparison of soil–water hysteresis model. J Hydrol 75:287–299

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keim RF, Skauqset AE (2003) Modelling effects of forest canopies on slope stability. Hydrol Process 17:1457–1467

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kerkides P, Kargas G, Argyrokastritis I (2006) The effect of different methods used for hysteretic K(H) determination on the infiltration simulations. Irrigation Drainage 55:403–418

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kool JB, Parker JC (1987) Development and evaluation of closed-form expressions for hysteretic soil hydraulic properties. Water Resour Res 23:105–114

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lan HX, Lee CF, Zhou CH, Martin CD (2005) Dynamic characteristics analysis of shallow landslides in response to rainfall event using GIS. Environ Geol 47:254–267

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lu N, Likos WJ (2004) Unsaturated soil mechanics. Wiley, Hoboken

    Google Scholar 

  • Montgomery DR, Dietrich WE (1994) A physically based model for the topographic control on shallow landslide. Water Resour Res 30:83–92

    Google Scholar 

  • Morrissey MM, Wieczorek GF, Morgan BA (2001) A comparative analysis of hazard models for predicting debris flows in Madison County, Virginia. US Geological Survey Open file report 01-67

  • Mualem Y (1984) A modified dependent domain theory of hysteresis. Soil Sci 137:283–291

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pickens JP, Gillham RW (1980) Finite-element analysis of solute transport under hysteretic unsaturated flow conditions. Water Resour Res 16:1071–1078

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richards LA (1931) Capillary conduction of liquids in porous mediums. Physics 1:318–333

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scott PS, Farquhar GJ, Kowen N (1983) Hysteretic effects on net infiltration. Advances in infiltration. Publ. 11-83. American Society of Agricultural Engineers, St. Joseph, pp 163–170

  • Tarantino A, Bosco G (2000) Role of soil suction in understanding the triggering mechanisms of flow slides associated with rainfall. In: Wieczorek GF, Naeser ND (eds) Debris-flow hazards mitigation: mechanics, prediction, and assessment, pp 81–88

  • Topp GC (1971) Soil-water hysteresis: the domain model theory extended to pore interaction conditions. Soil Sci Am J 33:645–651

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsai TL (2008) The influence of rainstorm pattern on shallow landslide. Environ Geol 53(7):1563–1570

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsai TL, Chen HF (2010) Effects of degree of saturation on shallow landslides triggered by rainfall. Environ Earth Sci 59:1285–1295

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsai TL, Yang JC (2006) Modeling of rainfall-triggered shallow landslide. Environ Geol 50(4):525–534

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsai TL, Chen HE, Yang JC (2008) Numerical modeling of rainfall-induced shallow landslides in saturated and unsaturated soils. Environ Geol 55(4):1269–1277

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vanapalli SK, Fredlund DG (2000) Comparison of empirical procedures to predict the shear strength of unsaturated soils using the soil–water characteristic curve. In: Shackelford CD, Houston SL, Chang NY (eds) Advances in unsaturated geotechnics. GPS No.99, ASCE, Reston, VA, pp 195–209

  • Vanapalli SK, Fredlund DG, Pufahl DE, Clifton AW (1996) Model for the prediction of shear strength with respect to soil suction. Can Geotech J 33:379–392

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Genuchten MTh (1980) A closed-form equation for predicting hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils. Soil Sci Soc Am J 44:892–898

  • Wallach R, Grigorin G, Rivlin J (1997) The errors in surface runoff prediction by neglecting the relationship between infiltration rate and overland flow depth. J Hydrol 200:243–259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wener AD, Lockington DA (2003) Influences of hysteresis on tidal capillary fringe dynamics in a well-sorted sand. Adv Water Resour 26:1199–1204

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu W, Sidle RC (1995) A distributed slope stability model for steep forested basins. Water Resour Res 31:2097–2110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang JC, Tsai TL, Huang AB (2008) A study on risk assessment of landslide and sediment deposition in Shihmen watershed. Rep. no. MOEAWRA0970151, Water Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taipei, Taiwan

Download references

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the National Science Council of the Republic of China under Grant No. NSC 98-2625-M-415-001-MY2.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Water Resources Engineering, National Chiayi University, 300 Sefu Road, Chiayi City, 60004, Taiwan

    Tung-Lin Tsai

Authors
  1. Tung-Lin Tsai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tung-Lin Tsai.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Tsai, TL. Influences of soil water characteristic curve on rainfall-induced shallow landslides. Environ Earth Sci 64, 449–459 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-010-0868-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-010-0868-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation