Abstract
Landslides or landslide-induced impact waves in high mountain lakes represent a high hazard for society, calling for realistic assessments of rock slope stability responsible for the process chain initiation. This task is often hampered by complex interplays of triggers, which effects on slope stability may be delayed by decades or even millennia, while historical records describing slope topography or landslide occurrences are usually shorter and incomplete. This article builds on rarely available detailed historical data describing the site of the 2002 rock avalanche in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru. It caused a dangerous impact wave in the Safuna Alta Lake resulting in a minor flood, but ongoing downstream development significantly increased the risk of a comparable event. Pre-2002 and post-2002 failure slope topography, 70 years long history of glaciation and landslide occurrences were combined with non-invasive field geological surveys and laboratory geotechnical analyses to characterize the distinct morphological parts of the failed slope with reliable engineering geological slope models. Slope stability was calculated for a series of environmental scenarios providing insights into the 2002 rock avalanche failure mechanism and dynamics as well as the role of glacier slope support for its stability. Results show that the rock slope stability is governed by discontinuous slip planes where rock bridges represent the most likely additional resisting forces. The effect of glacier support on the slope stability is limited under full-water saturation of the rocks and due to specific morpho-structural conditions. Importance of the long-term, progressive deterioration of the rock slope strength under paraglacial environment and repeated seismic shaking is illustrated by the fact that even the Little Ice Age maximum glacier extend only had minor positive effect on the pre-2002 rock avalanche slope stability. Despite of that, the slope remained without a major failure for decades or possibly even centuries. Its collapse in 2002 caused retrogressive movements of the adjacent slope, which remains highly unstable until now. Therefore the future safety of the lake would largely benefit from the implementation of a reliable slope movement monitoring system.
Highlights
High, glaciated mountains in seismically active regions represent sensitive environments where various hazardous processes with potentially cascading effects (Schaub et al, 2013; Westoby et al, 2014) occur and adversely affect social and economic development, leading in extreme cases to catastrophic events (Huggel et al, 2005; Allen et al, 2015; Iribarren Anacona et al, 2015; Byers et al, 2019)
The results provided reliable constrains for calculating the historical slope stability before the 2002 rock avalanche, which were performed on the 1948 profile (Figure 2) derived from the historical DEM (hDEM) data
The Safuna Alta Lake developed during the 1950s caused by glacier recession and thinning (Llibourty et al, 1977a)
Summary
High, glaciated mountains in seismically active regions represent sensitive environments where various hazardous processes with potentially cascading effects (Schaub et al, 2013; Westoby et al, 2014) occur and adversely affect social and economic development, leading in extreme cases to catastrophic events (Huggel et al, 2005; Allen et al, 2015; Iribarren Anacona et al, 2015; Byers et al, 2019) They are often initiated by landslides, (e.g. rockfalls, rockslides, rock avalanches), which cause disasters themselves or they may trigger a series of hazardous processes, (e.g. impact waves, lake outburst floods—LOF) resulting in damage far from the initiation points (Evans et al, 2009; Schneider et al, 2014; Haeberli et al, 2016). They are often neglected when discussing glacier-related hazards in seismically active regions, which leads to biased assumptions about slope stability and its possible future development
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