Lessons learnt from field tests in some potentially unstable slopes in Switzerland

Abstract

Rain-induced slope instability is a significant natural hazard in Switzerland, Slovenia and elsewhere in Europe. This contribution was prepared especially for the 12 th Suklje Symposium, and recognises that landslides occur both in mountain regions as well as in lowland regions during and following extreme-rainfall conditions. The Institute (and Professorship) for Geotechnical Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) has been engaged over several years in projects concerned with the characterisation, monitoring and modelling behaviour of slopes in mainly granular porous media across the full range of altitudes in Switzerland. A link is made to the doyen of the Suklje day and then three case histories are presented and discussed to demonstrate the principal reactions to seasonal rainfall. A small slip was released in two of these cases and the “triggering” factors have been investigated and are discussed in this contribution. It transpires that the mode of inslope drainage influences the way in which the ground saturates and hence the volume of the potentially unstable ground. Simple stability analyses using limit equilibrium and soil parameters that have been amended to account for unsaturated soil behaviour were found to function well for slopes in largely granular media.