Modelling Landslides Induced by Rainfall: A Coupled Approach

Abstract

Landslides induced by rainfall represent a significant natural hazard for large part of Europe. The catastrophic flowslides that occurred on steep slopes in Campania (southern Italy) in 1998, 1999, and 2005 were triggered by rainwater infiltration into shallow deposits of pyroclastic soils, which were initially unsaturated. In this work we present a back analysis at two different scales on the effects of infiltration into a layer of pyroclastic soils. The evolution of pore water pressure, water content and displacement has been monitored at laboratory scale in a flume test and in situ in the Cervinara slope located North-East of Naples. In the back analysis of flume test, a fully hydro-mechanical model has been used to describe the behaviour of the pyroclastic soils from unsaturated to saturated condition. In the case of Cervinara slope, the soil-atmosphere interaction has been modelled as a boundary fluxes which take into account the thermo-hydro-mechanical interaction based upon fundamental physics.