Abstract
In this work, a simple methodology for preliminarily assessing the magnitude of potential landslide-induced impulse waves’ attenuation in mountain lakes is presented. A set of metrics is used to define the geometries of theoretical mountain lakes of different sizes and shapes and to simulate impulse waves in them using the hydrodynamic software Flow-3D. The modeling results provide the ‘wave decay potential’, a ratio between the maximum wave amplitude and the flow depth at the shoreline. Wave decay potential is highly correlated with what is defined as the ‘shape product’, a metric that represents lake geometry. The relation between these two parameters can be used to evaluate wave dissipation in a natural lake given its geometric properties, and thus estimate expected flow depth at the shoreline. This novel approach is tested by applying it to a real-world event, the 2007 landslide-generated wave in Chehalis Lake (Canada), where the results match well with those obtained using the empirical equation provided by ETH Zurich (2019 Edition). This work represents the initial stage in the development of this method, and it encourages additional research and modeling in which the influence of the impacting characteristics on the resulting waves and flow depths is investigated.
Highlights
Landslide-induced impulse waves in lakes are gaining interest in the scientific community due to the hazards they pose to people living or recreating along their shorelines and to dams and other infrastructure [1]
A set of equations is used within a numerical modeling framework to characterize the geometric characteristics of a lake and quickly assess the possible wave threat in terms of wave dissipation and expected flow depth along the shoreline
Wave propagation controlled by lake geometry provides a general indication of where run-up or inundation would be the highest, the behavior of the breaking wave is heavily influenced by topography along the shoreline
Summary
Landslide-induced impulse waves in lakes are gaining interest in the scientific community due to the hazards they pose to people living or recreating along their shorelines and to dams and other infrastructure [1]. In June 2017, an impulse wave generated by a 50-Mm3 subaerial rockslide into Karrat Fiord on Greenland’s west coast killed four people and destroyed 11 buildings in the village of Nuugaatsiaq, 32 km from its source, and flooded other settlements along the coast [10]. These events are just a small subset of all the subaerial landslides known to have generated impulse waves around the world [1]
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