Effect of Climate Change on Depth of Suction Change—A Case Study

Influence of Weather, Soil Variability, and Vegetation on Seasonal Ground Movement: A Field Study

“…A linear extrapolation of EC 1:5 to the EC value at field moisture content was made. It has been found that the back extrapolation can overestimate the EC of pore water by 18 to 21% [55] Consequently, the EC 1:5 values have been reduced by 20% before applying Equation (1). The resultant solute suctions are presented together with total suction results later in Section 4.2.…”

“…However, a great disparity was revealed between field and laboratory-determined hydraulic conductivity values (see Figure 13 for field results near BHs South and North). Two rounds of field testing were conducted over autumn (1) and winter (2). The field testing gave values orders of magnitude higher than the laboratory-based values.…”

“…Nearly 30% of all surface soils in Australia can be classified as expansive [1,2]. These soils are also common in many other places in the world [2], including but not limited to the United States, Brazil, South Africa, India, China, Spain, Sudan and Greece [3].…”

“…In Australia, more than 80% of the annual housing insurance claims have been attributed to ground movement [8]. The situation is expected to worsen due to climate change [1].…”

“…Mitchell [28] showed that it is possible to account for expansive soil movement in design using empirical methods without heavily relying on experience. Later works [1,[30][31][32][33][34] highlighted the importance of better understanding the influence of atmospheric boundary interaction and changes in climate on the behaviour of shallow-depth structures on/in expansive soils. Several previous works have related climate with depth of suction change, e.g., Hu et al [35], Davenport [36], Walsh et al [37] and Fityus et al [38] generated depth of suction change (H s ) databases for different areas of Australia.…”