Changes in Thornthwaite Moisture Index and Reactive Soil Movements under Current and Future Climate Scenarios—A Case Study

Expansive soils go through significant volume changes due to seasonal moisture variations resulting in ground movements. The ground movement related problems are likely to worsen in the future due to climate change. It is important to understand and incorporate likely future changes in design to ens...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Energies (Basel) 2021-10, Vol.14 (20), p.6760
Main Authors: Karim, Md Rajibul, Rahman, Md Mizanur, Nguyen, Khoi, Cameron, Donald, Iqbal, Asif, Ahenkorah, Isaac
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Climate change
Climate effects
Design
Designers
Emission analysis
Expansive soils
Ground motion
ground movement
Influence
Meteorological data
Methods
Moisture content
Moisture index
Rain
Soil moisture
suction depth
Thornthwaite Moisture Index (TMI)
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Summary:Expansive soils go through significant volume changes due to seasonal moisture variations resulting in ground movements. The ground movement related problems are likely to worsen in the future due to climate change. It is important to understand and incorporate likely future changes in design to ensure the resilience of structures built on such soils. However, there has been a limited amount of work quantifying the effect of climate change on expansive soils movement and related behaviour of structures. The Thornthwaite Moisture Index (TMI) is one of the commonly used climate classifiers in quantifying the effect of atmospheric boundary on soil behaviour. Using the long-term weather data and predicted future changes under different emission scenarios, a series of TMI maps are developed for South Australia. Potential changes in ground movement are then estimated for a selected area using a simplified methodology where the effect of future climate is captured through changes in TMI. Results indicate that South Australia is likely to face a significant reduction in TMI under all emission scenarios considered in this study. The changes in TMI will lead to a considerable increase in potential ground movement which will influence the behaviour of structures built on them and in some areas may lead to premature failure if not considered in the design.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en14206760