Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

The Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau (CECB) has been approved and designated as one of the “World Centres of Excellence on Landslide Disaster Reduction 2014–2017” under the theme of “Model Policy Frameworks, Standards, and Guidelines on Landslide Disaster Reduction” by the Global Promotion Committee of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL) at the award ceremony of the World Landslide Forum 3 in Beijing, China. The above theme is divided into three thematic areas: first, Developing Conceptual Policy Frameworks to Understand the Causes, Effects and Mitigatory Measures of Landslide Occurrences, secondly to Implement Applicable Guidelines/Teaching Tools to Establish Essential Synergies in Landslide Disaster Phenomena, and thirdly to Originate Pertinent Standards for Humanitarian Activities in support of Effective Risk Reduction and Mitigations on Landslide Occurrences. The amalgamation of these three areas will originate a successive approach to developing a master plan for disaster risk reduction as a cost-effective investment in preventing future losses. The proposal for WCoE submitted by CECB was mainly focused on continuing IPL research activities, building up global partnerships and regional networks and conducting national projects and awareness programmes on Landslide Risk Reduction. This paper illustrates the above activities in a more comprehensive and descriptive manner.

The World Centre of Excellence (WCoE) on Landslide Risk Reduction entitled “Landslide risk assessment and development guidelines for effective risk reduction” (2014–2017) was designed to contribute to the risk reduction effort formulated in the Sendai Partnership initiative. Several research activities were developed and their results were presented to a broad public through a series of articles, informative web pages and documentary movies. The research focused on improving landslide hazard assessment in a variety of natural environments, including deep-seated as well as shallow landslides. Landslide hazard assessment was applied practically through development projects in Ethiopia and Peru. Within the scope of the WCoE we proposed and conducted two projects of the International Program on Landslides (IPL). One of them is dedicated to compilation and analysis of glacial lake outburst floods (Database of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs)–project No. 179) at the global level. This potentially highly damaging natural phenomenon combines characteristics of floods and debris flows and often also involves landslides in the initiation process. The other IPL project focuses on the main challenges of landslide risk reduction in the Czech Republic (Challenges for landslide hazard and risk management in “low risk” regions, Czech Republic, IPL project No. 197), which is a country with abundant landslide-related knowledge and rather low annual occurrence frequencies. Despite that, landslides cause considerable damage and financial losses, which often could be prevented if the available hazard information were to be used.

More than 90% of the territory of Ukraine has complex soil conditions. The number of landslides has increased by a factor of 1.3 in the last 15 years, and by a factor of about 3 over the last 30 years. Ukraine became a member of ICL only in 2009. The main task of Ukrainian division of ICL (UDICL) from 2009 to 2016 was and still is the implementation of the National Plan (the State Programme) on lanslide hazards mitigation. Because of a lack of governmental or any other support during the above years, UDICL has managed to carry out only two projects and is working on one more on a voluntary base. Objectives of the first IPL project were to determine the slopes with a landslide hazard in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine; to develop a database containing the engineering-geological information relevant to descriptors of landslide sites; and to develop targeted GIS on landslides in the Kharkiv region. All the goals of the project were achieved. In 2012–2014 IPL 153 project was implemented: information about landslide protection structures and measures was collected and structured, prospects of their development in the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea of Ukraine (ARCU) were studied, and the target database was created. Since 2015 “Landslide hazard zonation using GIS”, the IPL 191 project, is being realized. The main goal of the project was to develop an instrument for landslide hazard forecasting to minimize the impact of landslide activation on people and tangible objects for the Carpathian region of Ukraine. Two Ukrainian standards of construction objects monitoring and building in the landslide sensitive areas will be completed and put into effect in 2017–2018. UDICL plans a training programme concerning these building standards for more than 1000 designers from all the regions of Ukraine.

In this study, we developed a hazard evaluation technique for earthquake-induced landslides that is based on topographical and geological factors extracted by an analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Several past earthquake cases that have caused multiple landslides in Japan were analyzed. With this method, through buffer movement analysis, we were able to obtain factor data on the respective sizes of terrain impacted by landslides and the magnitude of the landslides in the target area. In addition, we incorporated a method to provide predictive values for the evaluation through blunder probability analysis. The area distribution of the coherent landslides following the Mid-Niigata Prefecture Earthquake in 2004 corresponded well with the high-scoring areas derived by our evaluation model. This paper presents the results of the IPL project (IPL-154) titled “Development of a methodology for risk assessment of the earthquake-induced landslides”.

The Croatian-Japanese joint research Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS) project ‘Risk Identification and Land-Use Planning for Disaster Mitigation of Landslides and Floods in Croatia’ was performed from 2009 to 2014. Key objectives of the project were landslides and floods hazard analysis and the development of guidelines for use in urban planning. This project is also designated as on-going IPL project 161. The aims of the working groups dealing with landslides were to establish a methodology of comprehensive real time monitoring at two most important landslides in Croatia based on the results of previous investigations and new in situ and laboratory testing and behavior analysis; laboratory soil testing and numerical modelling of static and dynamic landslide behavior; development of landslide inventories using direct sensing and remote sensing techniques followed by the development of methodologies of landslide hazard analysis and zonation in three pilot areas in Croatia. In this paper we will present the most important achievements of working groups related to landslide studies at the project pilot areas: two in Primorsko-Goranska County (the Rječina River Basin and the Dubračina River Basin) and one in the City of Zagreb (a hilly area of Medvednica Mt.). The identification and mapping of existing landslides in the hilly area of Medvednica Mt., Dubračina River Basin and Rječina River Basin so as establishment and results of the monitoring systems installed on the Grohovo Landslide and the Kostanjek Landslide will be described.

Like other South-East Asia countries, Vietnam is a country with mountainous terrain, complicated geological structure and high rainfall, and as a result, landslides occur regularly, with serious consequences for the mountain road networks in the rainy season. Due to economic difficulties and a lack of deep knowledge of the phenomena, activities to prevent and mitigate landslides are not effective. The SATREPS project of research cooperation between Japanese and Vietnamese researchers in the years 2011–2016 has not only helped Vietnam in the development of human resources, research equipment and development of a standard system of landslide investigation, monitoring, forecast and early warning, but has also contributed to disaster prevention and reduction in Vietnam in the future. This project is considered as a success for a new landslide-training tool, in cooperation with Asia members of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL), especially South-East Asia countries, for the mitigation of natural disasters.

The IPL project No 181 titled “Study of slow moving landslide Umka near Belgrade” started in November 2012. The study area is located on the right bank of Sava River, 25 km south west of Belgrade, Serbia. The basic objective of the Project was to enable the analysis, correlation and synthesis of data obtained from various phases of investigation of Umka landslide after 35 years of research. Apart from this, the analysis of data from monitoring conducted during certain phases of research was compared with data from automated GNSS monitoring over the last six years, although during numerous investigations various research methods were used for research and monitoring. The project was focused on: analysis of previous detail site investigations and field instrumentation from 1990–2005, analysis of aerial photos and orthophoto images from 1957 to 2010, analysis of automated GNSS monitoring results from 2010 to end of the Project and analysis of precipitation and levels of the Sava River. Project beneficiaries are local community and local and regional authorities. In this paper we will present results of the proposed project targets performed by Project participants.

Rainfall and earthquakes are considered two of the major causes of landslides worldwide. These landslides cause billions of dollars in property damage and revenue losses, as well as the deaths of thousands of people each year. While researchers have been examining the effect of either rainfall or earthquakes on the deformation and stability of slopes, the combined effect of rainfall and earthquakes on deformation and slope stability has not been evaluated systematically. In this study, a series of model slopes were constructed in a Plexiglas container placed on top of a shake table. The model slopes were prepared to have different initial void ratios of 0.89, 1.0 and 1.2 and various slope inclinations of 30°, 40°, and 45°. These slopes were instrumented with accelerometers, tensiometers and inclinometers and subjected to a number of sinusoidal seismic motions with different seismic accelerations from 0.1 to 0.3 g, with several frequencies ranging from 1 to 3 Hz for various durations ranging from 10 cycles to 50 cycles of loading. Following the earthquake event, a rain simulator system was used to induce rainfall at intensities of either 18, 30 or 60 mm/h. The seepage velocity, spatial variation of suction and the deformation of the slopes were determined. The results obtained were compared to those obtained from similar slopes subjected to rainfall without an earthquake event. The study showed that the seismic shaking resulted in a reduction in the seepage velocity in the slope, which led to an increase in the factor of safety of the slope with time.

Although early records of landslides in Malaysia have existed since the beginning of the last century, national attention on landslides increased in earnest in the wake of the 1993 Highland Towers landslides. In 2003, an economically devastating rockslide in Bukit Lanjan led to the establishment of the Slope Engineering Branch (Cawangan Kejuruteraan Cerun—CKC). One of CKC’s first achievements upon formation was to carry out a National Slope Master Plan study to reduce risks and losses from landslides. One of the studies explores and devises methods for assessing risk that combine traditional and risk-based approaches. It introduces a risk assessment-based approach that looks beyond the fulfilment of Factors of Safety; it evaluates a slope based on its risk or probability of slope failure occurrence and assesses the consequence or damage caused by the failure. Most significantly, it compares the derived risk assessment results with the acceptable risk level of the public and residents. In essence, it becomes a decision-making tool for slope planners and developers to determine whether to proceed with the construction of a new slope or how much mitigation work should be put into an existing failing slope. One of the study components, Public Awareness and Education, launched a national awareness and education campaign to get create awareness of landslide risks and mobilize various stakeholders in the public, private, civil society and community levels into taking proactive measures for mitigation and prevention. It culminated in a programing conveying four main key messages, which are “Learn, Monitor, Maintain and Report”.

A mud eruption in East Java that occured on May 29, 2006 is well known worldwide. The mechanisms of the causes of the eruptions are still in debate, whether it was triggered by gas well drilling or by pressurised fluid reactivated by the Jogjakarta earthquake of May 26, 2006. This debate is not the main issue in this report. Instead, this paper discusses mainly the results of CPTu tests recently conducted and mitigation and risk reduction. The volume of the mud discharge is estimated at 5000 m. Dykes were constructed to contain the mud, which covered areas reaching 650 ha (Sofyan ). The location of the disaster is in the middle of the town of Porong in the district of Sidoardjo, near Surabaya International airport, and mud has blocked the major arterial roads from north to south of East Java. The soil condition of the site is deep soft clays which causes instability of the dykes. Some dyke failures occurred, endangering residential areas due to the flow of the mud (Rahardjo ). This paper describes the characterics of the soil conditions from a number of drillings and CPTu tests conducted by the authors for designing the replacement of the arterial road and for dyke reinforcement, and also in the middle of the mud. The paper discuss the geotechnical problems of land subsidence over large areas and differential settlement that cause damage to infrastructure, including roads, gas pipes, railways, bridges and buildings, and is of particular importance to the safety of the dykes. The mud has been discharged through the Porong River, and sedimentation is part of the problem.