The July 14, 2003 Qianjiangping landslide, Three Gorges Reservoir, China

Abstract

The Qianjiangping landslide occurred after the first impoundment of the Three Gorges Reservoir in July 2003. Field investigation revealed that failure occurred when the reservoir reached 135 m, but the stability of the affected slope was already reduced by pre-existing bedding-plane shears, quarrying of mudstone from the landslide toe, and previous heavy rain. A possible explanation of the rapid and long runout mechanism of the landslide is that movement on a bedding-plane shear ruptured the calcite cement and rapidly reduced the sandstone strength to residual shear strength.

Thermo-poro-mechanical analysis of landslides: from creeping behaviour to catastrophic failure

“…Other large-scale catastrophic landslides associated with reservoir operations have been reported by Alcántara-Ayala & Domínguez-Morales (2008) (San Juan de Grijalva slide in Mexico, 2007); Wang et al (2004) and Dai et al (2004) (Qiangjianping slide in China, towards the reservoir of the Three Gorges Project, 2003); Chamot (1993), Plaza-Netos & Zevallos (1994), Schuster et al (2002) and Harden (2004) (La Josefina landslide, Ecuador, in 1993). An often reported case in recent years is the giant Tsaoling landslide, Taiwan, that was triggered by the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake (Chen et al, 2003;Tang et al, 2009;Liao et al, 2011;Wu & Chen, 2011;Yang et al, 2014.…”

A successful case of emergency landslide response - the Sept. 2, 2014, Shanshucao landslide, Three Gorges Reservoir, China

“…A rise of this magnitude is unprecedented. The failure was probably triggered by the direct reduction in normal load within the toe of the slope and dynamic hydraulic pressure of underground water caused by the rising water level (Wang et al 2004, Singh et al 2012. Fig.…”

Landslides on river banks in the western part of Podhale (Central Carpathians, Poland)

“…They are mainly found on the high banks of the Vistula River near Nowe Brzesko, Sandomierz, Pu³awy, at the War saw es carp ment, in Dobrzyñ and OEwiecie (e.g., Banach, 1973Banach, , 1977Banach, , 1988Banach, , 1998Bijak, 2007;Ilcewicz-Stefa niuk and Stefaniuk, 2007;Tyszkowski, 2008Tyszkowski, , 2012aTyszkowski, , 2014. Land slides are es pe cially fre quent on banks of ar ti fi cial dam res er voirs (Spanila, 1996), such as at W³oc³awek (Banach, 1985(Banach, , 1994(Banach, , 2004(Banach, , 2006Banach et al, 2013), Pakooeae (Grobelska, 2006) and Jeziorsko (Banach and Grobelska, 2003;Kaczmarek, 2010), or in Si be ria (Shirokov, 1984;Kuskovskiy and Khabidov, 2002;Kozyrieva, 2001;Nazarov, 2006) and China (e.g., Wang et al, 2004;He et al, 2008) but also on the sea cliffs (Lefebre, 1986;Barret et al, 2011). The land slides orig i nated in those places where wa ter was or is now un der cut ting banks of rivers or lakes or where wa ter soaked the banks (Szabó, 2003;Scesi and Gattioni, 2009).…”