A New Physically-Based Simulation Framework for Modelling Flow-Like Landslides

Abstract

Flow-like landslides are one type of the most catastrophic natural hazards that often cause significant loss of life and property. Numerical modelling has become a powerful tool to facilitate better risk management of this type of natural hazards. In the past decades, a number of models have been developed to simulate flow-like landslides. Among them, the depth-integrated models based on continuum theory have gained wide-spreading popularity. However, these models are generally developed either on the locally curved coordinate system that prevents the direct use of geographic information system (GIS) data or by not taking into full account of the vertical acceleration on steep slopes that may lead to loss of accuracy. These limitations hinder the wider application of these models in simulating field-scale landslides with complex topography. This paper presents a new depth-integrated model for more robust simulation of flow-like landslides. The model is developed on a fixed global Cartesian coordinate system to enable the direct use of the widely available GIS data. To gain more favourable accuracy, the new model also takes into account the effect of the vertical acceleration. The improved performance of this new model is validated against an experimental test case.