Characterizing Seasonally Rainfall-Driven Movement of a Translational Landslide using SAR Imagery and SMAP Soil Moisture

Precipitation infiltrates into basal shearing zones, triggering seasonal landslide motion by increasing pore-pressure and reducing shear resistance. This process is jointly controlled by basal depth, rainfall intensity, soil moisture, and hydraulic conductivity/diffusivity. Using interferometric syn...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2019-10, Vol.11 (20), p.2347
Main Authors: Xu, Yuankun, Kim, Jinwoo, George, David L., Lu, Zhong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Coordinate transformations
Diffusivity
Equilibrium analysis
Failure
hydraulic diffusivity
Hydraulics
Interferometric synthetic aperture radar
landslide
Landslides
Landslides & mudslides
limit equilibrium
Mechanical properties
Metamorphic rocks
Parameter estimation
Precipitation
Rain
Rainfall
Rainfall intensity
Rainy season
Remote sensing
Rheological properties
Rheology
Shear strength
Shearing
Soil investigations
Soil mechanics
Soil moisture
Soil properties
Surface velocity
time lag
Topography
Velocity
Velocity distribution
water infiltration
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Summary:Precipitation infiltrates into basal shearing zones, triggering seasonal landslide motion by increasing pore-pressure and reducing shear resistance. This process is jointly controlled by basal depth, rainfall intensity, soil moisture, and hydraulic conductivity/diffusivity. Using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), we detected and mapped a slow-moving slide in the southwestern Oregon. Its basal depths are estimated using InSAR-derived surface velocity fields based on the mass conservation approach by assuming a power-law rheology. The estimated maximum thickness over the central region of the landslide is 6.9 ± 2.6 m. This result is further confirmed by an independent limit equilibrium analysis that solely relies on soil mechanical properties. By incorporating satellites-captured time lags of 27–49 days between the onset of wet seasons and the initiation of landslide motions, the averaged characteristic hydraulic conductivity and diffusivity of the landslide material is estimated as 1.2 × 10−5 m/s and 1.9 × 10−4 m2/s, respectively. Our investigation layouts a framework for using InSAR and satellite-sensed soil moisture to infer landslide basal geometry and estimate corresponding hydraulic parameters.
ISSN:2072-4292
2072-4292
DOI:10.3390/rs11202347