Abstract
The increased demand for food causes intensive farming with high yield production and large water consumption to extend significantly. Depending on soil properties, seasonal rainfall, surface drainage and water resources, hence the consumption-infiltration balance, the ground water table might be raised or depleted; soils could be saturated or remain partly saturated with negative pore pressures. As a result sloping grounds may become prone to shallow slides, as mudflows, or deep seated movements, involving large volumes of soil, especially after rupture of major watering lines or after long uncontrolled irrigations. Within this framework the paper investigates the possible effects of replacing grassland with intensive apple farming on the stability conditions of slopes. Apples require frequent watering, especially during spring and summer to meet qualitative and quantitative productive standards. Also, sprinkler irrigation is often used to protect against hail. From the precipitation, irrigation, runoff, evaporation and plant transpiration balance, the evolution of the pore water pressure distribution within an average year is calculated. Then the modified shear strength of the unsaturated-saturated soils is determined and the factor of safety against sliding is calculated.
Highlights
Knowledge of the pore water pressures is fundamental in assessing the stability and safety against failure of geotechnical structures, such as natural slopes, artificial cuts, buried structures, retaining walls, foundations
Positive and negative pore pressures will vary with depth depending on type of vegetation and growing practices, irrigation procedures, local climate and resulting evapotranspiration, available water sources
Initially stable slopes may become prone to sliding after introducing new species that require extensive watering, as a result of increasing the pore pressures and rising the water table [1, 2, 3]; in general in
Summary
Knowledge of the pore water pressures is fundamental in assessing the stability and safety against failure of geotechnical structures, such as natural slopes, artificial cuts, buried structures, retaining walls, foundations. In the vicinity of the ground surface, and at greater depths in fine soils, the unsaturated state is generally prevailing, and pore pressures shift into the negative range In such cases the interplay between pore water, pore air pressure, interparticle stresses, governs the size and distribution of the pores, the volume of voids, the mechanisms of water retention, the permeability, the deformability and the shear strength of the particle assembly. In addition sprinkler and drip irrigation are considered For each of these cases, numerical analyses are performed to trace the variation of the pore water pressure distribution with depth and with time throughout an average one-year time interval, to include the four seasons history of rain and temperature at ground surface. Once the evolution of the pore water pressures distribution is obtained, the variation of the shear strength and of the factor of safety for different sliding mechanisms can be calculated throughout the one-year average weather history
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