Effect of antecedent rainfall conditions and their variations on shallow landslide-triggering rainfall thresholds in South Korea

Abstract

The intensity-duration (I-D) threshold is considered an effective indicator for landslides triggered by short-term high-intensity rainfall and long-term low-intensity rainfall. However, previous studies have not considered the influence of antecedent rainfall. Herein, we analyzed hourly rainfall data for 613 shallow landslides that occurred from 1963 to 2018 in South Korea to obtain rainfall thresholds and investigated the effect of antecedent rainfall conditions on threshold variations. The I-D and IMAP-D, which is normalized by dividing I by mean annual precipitation (MAP), thresholds were determined to be I = 10.40D–0.31 and IMAP = 0.006D–0.26 (4 ≤ D (h) ≤ 84), respectively, at the 2nd percentile level through quantile regression analysis. These thresholds were lower than other local thresholds (i.e., excluding global and regional thresholds), suggesting that the southern region of the Korean Peninsula was more susceptible to rainfall-induced landslides. Although the effective length of antecedent rainfall was not presented herein, the I-D threshold of landslide-triggering rainfall was confirmed to be low for the absolute and/or calibrated antecedent rainfalls greater than event cumulative rainfall at 5, 7, 10, and 20 days prior to the event. Such differences in I can be greater at shorter durations; however, these differences gradually decrease as D increases, suggesting that they lose their effect as soil water content increases. The results of the current study can improve the understanding of the effect of antecedent rainfall conditions on landslide occurrence and should be further tested with respect to the hydrologic response of hillslopes by considering regional climate and local site conditions.