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The effectiveness of a drainage tunnel in increasing the rainfall threshold of a deep-seated landslide

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Abstract

A rising level of groundwater is a critical trigger for deep-seated landslides. Accordingly, an effective measure to improve the stability of a landslide is to reduce the groundwater level of a slope by using a drainage system. This study investigates the effectiveness of drainage tunnels in increasing the rainfall threshold of a deep-seated landslide. Monitoring results show that the movement of the landslide is highly sensitive to the prevailing groundwater level (GL), and the value of GL has a direct connection with the movement of a slope. Based on continuous monitoring of data of groundwater level (GL) and precipitation, the Particle Swarm Optimization Support Vector Machine (PSO-SVM) model was developed to predict GL based on antecedent rainfall. The calculated results show that the performance of the PSO-SVM model is acceptable. Using intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) analysis and the PSO-SVM model, the rainfall threshold of the landslide in this study was estimated to range from 63 to 78 mm before the drainage tunnel was completed. This contrasted with a rainfall threshold ranging from 144 to 162 mm after the drainage tunnel was completed. This shows that the construction of a drainage tunnel increased the rainfall threshold of the landslide significantly, nearly doubling it.

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Funding

This research is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41772276), Key R&D project of Zhejiang Province (Grant No. 2017C03006), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2019M652083).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Zhen-lei Wei, Yue-quan Shang & Hao-di Xu

  2. Ocean College, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Hong-yue Sun & Dong-fei Wang

Authors
  1. Zhen-lei Wei
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  2. Yue-quan Shang
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  3. Hong-yue Sun
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  4. Hao-di Xu
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  5. Dong-fei Wang
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Correspondence to Hong-yue Sun.

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Wei, Zl., Shang, Yq., Sun, Hy. et al. The effectiveness of a drainage tunnel in increasing the rainfall threshold of a deep-seated landslide. Landslides 16, 1731–1744 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-019-01241-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-019-01241-4

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