Hydrologically complemented deterministic slope stability analysis in part of Indian Lesser Himalaya

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study uses a deterministic approach to evaluate the factor of safety (FS) of the terrain for different hydrological conditions, in part of Indian Lesser Himalaya. The results indicate sudden increase in the percentage unstable area from 7.5% to 13.8% for rainfall intensity variation from 50 to 100 mm/day. For the rainfall intensity of 15 August 2007 which caused many landslides in the study area, 18.5% of the total area was unstable and it increases to 21.7%, 23.5% and 24.7%, respectively, for rainfall intensities corresponding to 10, 25 and 50 year return periods. This increment stagnates at about 260 mm/day, making about 25% of the area unstable. Higher rainfall intensities make progressively gentler slopes unstable, but limited to 25 degrees of slope in this area. The area underlain by granitic gneiss showed 23.1% of area as unstable for 135 mm/day of rainfall intensity, and was followed by those areas underlain by amphibolite (16%), limestone (13.7%) and quartzite (10.4%). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis has given 84.2% accuracy for the model. Conversion of FS to failure probability through Z scores enables identification unstable or marginally unstable areas, for planning selective slope stabilization measures.