AN OVERVIEW OF LANDSLIDE HAZARDS PREDICTION AND ITS CONTROL BASED ON
SLIDING FORCE MONITORING TECHNIQUES IN CHINA
Manchao He a,b*, Weili Gong a,b, Zhigang Tao a,b
a State Key Laboratory for Geomechanics & Deep Underground Engineering, Beijing 100083, China
b School of Mechanics and Civil Engineering, China University of Mining & Technology, Beijing 100083,China
manchaohecumtb@163.com
ABSTRACT
Landslide is one of the major geological disasters and degree and influence of the hazards are ranked
only after earthquake and volcanic eruption. China is one of the countries in the world with the most
widely distributed landslides and suffering the heaviest damage. According to the incomplete statistics,
landslide hazards have caused death of hundreds of people and direct economic losses of several hundred
million RMB each year. The landslide hazards have a great impact on the life and property safety of the
people, safety of the infrastructure, as well as the social stability. Thus development of new techniques for
forecasting and prediction of the landslides is imperative and of great importance. In general, the
forecasting and prediction of the landslides consists of three major aspects, i.e. sliding time forecasting,
landslide activity intensity forecasting and landslide hazard degree forecasting. Since a considerable part of
the landslide-suspected area are adjacent to the residential areas or important infrastructures, development
of the advanced landslide control and monitoring techniques to cope with the sliding time forecasting
problem is more important.
This paper presents an overview of the major landslide hazards in China, the currently used landslide
control and monitoring techniques, and development of a novel sliding force-measurement based landslide
monitoring technique incorporating the slope-control by using a new-type energy absorbing cable, namely
the constant resistance and large deformation (CRLD) cable and Baibou satellite-based remote monitoring
technique. Fig. 1a shows the CRLD cable-based slope control and sliding force monitoring model,
illustrating the usage of the CRLD cable for anchorage of the slope at equilibrium state with the forces
including the driven force, the anchoring force and sliding force which is measured at point D2. Fig. 1b
shows the CRLD cable in counter-acting a sliding slope. Fig. 1c depicts the Beidou satellite based remote
sensing system for the landslide monitoring. The measure data from D2 (Fig. 1a) are sensed by the receiver
in the Beidou satellite and then transmitted to the indoor monitoring center. The acquired sliding force data
are processed by using the computer system based on the specially developed mathematical model and
plotted in real-time for assessing the abnormal precursors for landslide or slope failure.
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a
c
b
Fig. 1. Remote-sensing based force measurement system for control and motoring of the landslides: (a) physical model
of pre-stressed CRLD cable sliding-resistant system; (b) principle of the CRLD cable in prevention of the sliding body
from sliding, and (c) Beidou satellite remote sensing system for monitoring the sliding force.
Landslide may be caused by rainfall, snow melt, earthquake, soil, geological structure, topography, or
other factors. However, its physical nature lies in the stress-redistribution in the sliding masses and the
contacting surface with respect to the sliding beds. The outstanding advantage of the landslide control,
forecasting and prevention counter-measures introduced in this paper lies in the sliding force monitoring
mechanism with which the sufficient and necessary condition for the landslides or slope failure can be
derived. Thus the obtained forewarning precursors are robust and reliable with sufficiently high time
accuracy. This is due to the extraordinarily large elongation (as long as 2 m) and constant resistance (as
high as 30,000 kg) to the landslide driving force possessed by the CRLD cable innovated by Manchao He
(Patented in 2011, No. ZL 2010 1 0196197.2, Certificate No. 852069), the first author of this article. Over
years, this novel technique has been applied successfully in many practical cases including the slope failure
in the open pit mines and landslides.
As an example, a practical landslide case in Pingzhuang west open pit coal mine is illustrated in Fig. 2.
The Pingzhuang open pit is located in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region close to the border of
Beijing as shown in Fig. 2a. Fig. 2b shows distribution of the monitoring sites at which the CRLD cables
were anchored. The red dashed line circle highlights the introduced monitoring site MJ33–1 at which the
sliding force data were measured and remotely sensed by the Beidou satellite system. Fig. 2c shows the
plot of the sliding force vs. monitoring time. The sliding force vs. time curve indicates the speed-up
propagation of cracks in the slope body by a turning point (the first solid black dot), three major slop
fracture events by three sharp drops of the curve which are the abnormal forewarning precursors. The
major landslide event was predicted successfully, in September 15, 2007, by the second sliding force drop
point in the ductile segment (last segment) of the low-level sliding force curve. Fig. 2d show the scene of
the landslide in the site MJ33–1. Although the event is violent and dynamic, but no any losses to the life of
the workers and equipments as a result of the accurate prediction of the event in a timely manner by using
the new landslide monitoring system.
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a
b
c
d
Fig. 2. Landslides distribution in China and the field case in Pingzhuang West open pit mine: (a) landslides distribution;
(b) landslides in site MJ33–1 in September 15, 2007; (c) the sliding force with respect to the monitoring time; (d)
landslide site MJ33–1 .
KEYWORDS
Landslide, Slope failure, Sliding force monitoring, Remote sensing, Forewarning precursors
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