Simulation of shallow landslides induced by typhoon in July 2018 in Gogoshima, Ehime Prefecture, Japan based on a simple model

Abstract

Every year, many typhoons make landfall in Japan causing disasters on mountain slopes across the country. Rainfall induced landslides in Japan mostly occur at shallow depths. Developing simple models of rainfall-induced landslides provides a practical alternative to finite element methods in large-scale landslide modelling and prediction. Therefore, authors previously developed a simple method to calculate the advance of the wetting front into fine sand slopes subjected rainfall. However, during intense rainfall, the excess rainfall that cannot be absorbed into the soil will generate runoff on the slope surface, which has not been included in the previous model. Thus, this study integrated the model with a surface water modeling module to simulate the disasters more comprehensively. The surface water is controlled by 2D shallow water equations and the digital elevation model depression removal process. The combined model is able to provide the maps of the wetting front, surface water depth, and factor of safety of slope during rainstorms. The newly integrated model was used to simulate rainfall-induced disasters in the Gogoshima Island during the July 2018 typhoon. The simulation results disclosed that both moving of the wetting front and surface water flows contributed to shallow landslides along catchments in this island.