Abstract
Abstract. HIRESSS (HIgh REsolution Slope Stability Simulator) is a physically based distributed slope stability simulator for analyzing shallow landslide triggering conditions in real time and on large areas using parallel computational techniques. The physical model proposed is composed of two parts: hydrological and geotechnical. The hydrological model receives the rainfall data as dynamical input and provides the pressure head as perturbation to the geotechnical stability model that computes the factor of safety (FS) in probabilistic terms. The hydrological model is based on an analytical solution of an approximated form of the Richards equation under the wet condition hypothesis and it is introduced as a modeled form of hydraulic diffusivity to improve the hydrological response. The geotechnical stability model is based on an infinite slope model that takes into account the unsaturated soil condition. During the slope stability analysis the proposed model takes into account the increase in strength and cohesion due to matric suction in unsaturated soil, where the pressure head is negative. Moreover, the soil mass variation on partially saturated soil caused by water infiltration is modeled. The model is then inserted into a Monte Carlo simulation, to manage the typical uncertainty in the values of the input geotechnical and hydrological parameters, which is a common weak point of deterministic models. The Monte Carlo simulation manages a probability distribution of input parameters providing results in terms of slope failure probability. The developed software uses the computational power offered by multicore and multiprocessor hardware, from modern workstations to supercomputing facilities (HPC), to achieve the simulation in reasonable runtimes, compatible with civil protection real time monitoring. A first test of HIRESSS in three different areas is presented to evaluate the reliability of the results and the runtime performance on large areas.
Highlights
Soil slips and debris flows are among the most dangerous landslides (Jakob and Hungr, 2005): the threat they pose to human activities and life is mainly due to the high velocity that they can reach during the run out and to the nearly total absence of premonitory signals
The modeling of physical processes involved in shallow landslide triggering usually requires some simplifications: we developed our model trying to reach a compromise between computational speed and the reliability of the results
The physical model proposed is composed of two parts: hydrological and geotechnical
Summary
Soil slips and debris flows are among the most dangerous landslides (Jakob and Hungr, 2005): the threat they pose to human activities and life is mainly due to the high velocity that they can reach during the run out and to the nearly total absence of premonitory signals. To achieve this objective a physical model was developed with these main characteristics: (a) the capability of computing the factor of safety at each time step and at the end of the rainfall event; (b) the variable-depth computation of slope stability; (c) the introduction of the contribution of soil suction in unsaturated conditions; (d) the probabilistic treatment of the uncertainties in the main hydrological and mechanical parameters and, of the factor of safety. A model with the aforementioned capabilities cannot be applied continuously over a large area without resorting to supercomputers and parallel processing For this reason, the entire model programming code of HIRESSS was developed to run over multiprocessor systems and was tested for performances with an increasing number of processing units to design an optimal cost/benefit approach covering the entire prediction chain, from rainfall data acquisition to the factor of safety computation
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