Numerical modelling of slope–vegetation–atmosphere interaction: an overview

Abstract

The behaviour of natural and artificial slopes is controlled by their thermo-hydro-mechanical conditions and by soil–vegetation–atmosphere interaction. Porewater pressure changes within a slope related to variable meteorological settings have been shown to be able to induce soil erosion, shrinkage–swelling and cracking, thus leading to an overall decrease of the available soil strength with depth and, ultimately, to a progressive slope collapse. In terms of numerical modelling, the stability analysis of partially saturated slopes is a complex problem and a wide range of approaches from simple limit equilibrium solutions to advanced numerical analyses have been proposed in the literature. The more advanced approaches, although more rigorous, require input data such as the soil water retention curve and the hydraulic conductivity function, which are difficult to obtain in some cases. The quantification of the effects of future climate scenarios represents an additional challenge in forecasting slope–atmosphere interaction processes. This paper presents a review of real and ideal case histories regarding the numerical analysis of natural and artificial slopes subjected to different types of climatic perturbations. The limits and benefits of the different numerical approaches adopted are discussed and some general modelling recommendations are addressed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Use of displacement as a proxy for dike safety

“…Both drainage and vegetation strongly affect dike performance (Vardon, 2015;Elia et al, 2017). As available geotechnical models cannot simulate the effect of vegetation on dike stability, in the current study, a crop growth model is coupled to a Finite Element Method (FEM) model to enable the evaluation of variable climatic and vegetation conditions on dike stability.…”

Current and future role of instrumentation and monitoring in the performance of transport infrastructure slopes

“…2; Devoli et al 2015;Boje et al 2014), and a demonstrator system is being developed for the UK London to South West rail routes called GeoSRM (Sadler et al 2016) that determines earthworks risk based on geology, soil moisture conditions and forecast rainfall. More sophisticated systems could incorporate underlying slope failure models based on approximate soil properties and the geometry of the earthworks, although it could be challenging to predict failure within particular slopes as key data (geometry, geology, condition) and models of failure are often insufficient or too simplified (Glendinning et al 2015;Elia et al 2017). Nonetheless, such a system could be valuable if coupled with near-future weather data (e.g.…”

The Effects of Slope Initialization on the Numerical Model Predictions of the Slope-Vegetation-Atmosphere Interaction

“…The SVA interaction is the combination of the mass (liquid or gas) and the energy exchanges between the atmosphere, the vegetation, the soil skeleton and the pore fluids. The phenomena bringing about such exchanges are of either thermodynamic, or hydraulic, or mechanical or chemical nature (e.g., [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]). With regards to water, such phenomena determine either its infiltration as a liquid, or its evaporation and transpiration as a vapor.…”