Applying Seismic Refraction Method for Landslide Investigation in Doi Ong Tuong, Hoa Binh Province, Vietnam

Abstract

Summary Landslide is a serious natural hazard for mountain areas. Particularly, Northwest Vietnam such as Hoa Binh province is a place where landslide usually occurs and causes severe human casualties, property losses and environmental degradation. Thus, landslide investigation is of critical importance to mitigate the hazard. Seismic methods are powerful tools to investigate the landslide. Geophysical data can be used to define bedrock geometry and to locate the potential zones of the landslide. We apply seismic refraction method to a dataset acquired along with nine profiles in Doi Ong Tuong, Hoa Binh province, Vietnam. The seismic data is put in the inversion process to compute P-wave velocity of the profiles. The P-wave velocity model is then put in fuzzy clustering to build a clustering map that represents geological rock units. Moreover, nine sections of P-wave velocity are interpolated to build a 3D model and an isometric thickness map of the cover layer that directly links to the landslide; accordingly, we define two most potential zones of landslides in the survey area.