Rapid loess flow slides in Heifangtai Terrace, Gansu, China

The Heifangtai is located on the fourth terrace of the Yellow River, c. 60 km to the west of Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, China (Fig. 1a). The terrace has an area of 13.7 km2 and, since the 1960s, has been used as farmland by the people relocated from areas affected by the construction of the Liuji...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Quarterly journal of engineering geology and hydrogeology 2017-05, Vol.50 (2), p.106-110
Main Authors: Peng Jianbing, Peng Jianbing, Zhang Fanyu, Zhang Fanyu, Wang, Gonghui
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural land
Asia
China
clastic sediments
Clay
degradation
Ecological effects
Engineering geology
Environmental geology
Erosion
erosion features
Erosion rates
Failures
Far East
Fluvial deposits
Gansu China
geologic hazards
Groundwater
Groundwater levels
gullies
Heifangtai Terrace
Huang He
Irrigation
Land degradation
Land use
Landslides
Lanzhou China
Loess
Luijiaxia Dam
mass movements
natural hazards
Relocation
Rivers
sediments
slope stability
Soil
Soil erosion
soil mechanics
Soil permeability
soils
Terraces
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Summary:The Heifangtai is located on the fourth terrace of the Yellow River, c. 60 km to the west of Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, China (Fig. 1a). The terrace has an area of 13.7 km2 and, since the 1960s, has been used as farmland by the people relocated from areas affected by the construction of the Liujiaxia Dam and its associated reservoir on the Yellow River. Large-scale irrigation on the terrace resulting from agricultural land use since the relocation has elevated groundwater levels by c. 20 m as a result of the presence of a relatively impermeable clay layer underlying more permeable loess deposits (Derbyshire et al. 2000; Dijkstra 2000; Zhang et al. 2013; Peng et al. 2016). This in turn has led to the occurrence of about 50 major landslides within the loess deposits of the terrace (Fig. 1b), with the total number of failures exceeding 110 (Peng et al. 2016). These loess landslides have caused more than 40 fatalities and have injured over 100 people. They have also resulted in serious ecological and environmental problems owing to the increased rates of soil erosion, land degradation and ground subsidence associated with them (Zhang et al. 2014).
ISSN:1470-9236
2041-4803
DOI:10.1144/qjegh2016-065