A rapid loess mudflow triggered by the check dam failure in a bulldoze mountain area, Lanzhou, China

Urban expansion results in a large number of land creation projects in the Chinese Loess Plateau. This has strikingly catalyzed hilltops being cut and valleys or low lands being filled by bulldozed mountain. Meanwhile, a large number of check dams were built into the loess gully to store soil and wa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Landslides 2019-10, Vol.16 (10), p.1981-1992
Main Authors: Zhang, Fanyu, Yan, Binbin, Feng, Xiaoming, Lan, Hengxing, Kang, Chao, Lin, Xishan, Zhu, Xinghua, Ma, Wenguo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agriculture
Bulldozers
Check dams
Civil Engineering
Dam failure
Dams
Debris flow
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Failure
Field investigations
Geography
Geology
Groundwater
Gullies
Investigations
Liquefaction
Loess
Moisture content
Mountain regions
Mountains
Mudflows
Natural Hazards
Physical properties
Recent Landslides
Seepage
Simulation
Soil
Soil moisture
Soil water storage
Stability
Triaxial tests
Urban sprawl
Valleys
Water content
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Summary:Urban expansion results in a large number of land creation projects in the Chinese Loess Plateau. This has strikingly catalyzed hilltops being cut and valleys or low lands being filled by bulldozed mountain. Meanwhile, a large number of check dams were built into the loess gully to store soil and water. This paper studied a case of check dam failure, which resulted in rapid loess mudflow in a bulldozed mountain area. To investigate kinematic characteristics of the mudflow and trigger mechanism of the dam failure, in situ feature measurements, physical property tests, triaxial tests, and groundwater simulations were carried out. The field investigation revealed that moisture content of the loess in the filled area was very high and that the dam failure was most likely due to groundwater seepage. The VS2DI simulation of the check dam showed that its material was over saturated due to moisture migration in it, which significantly affected its stability. The simulation results are consistent with those of the field investigation. Rapid mobility of the mudflow could be attributed to liquefaction of the loess behind the dams. Meanwhile, the movement velocities calculated from by in situ mud splash height are related to the deposited volume of the mobilized materials at corresponding sites.
ISSN:1612-510X
1612-5118
DOI:10.1007/s10346-019-01219-2