Landslide Volume Estimation Using Reconstructed Failure Surfaces

Landslide is one of the most dangerous disasters threatening our properties and lives.To better understand the mechanism and the impact of landslides,accurate landslide volume estimation is gaining concern,since it plays a very important role in the relevant research.However,the existing methods of landslide volume estimation show problems in their results due to the subsurface information of landslides is usually unknown.While,reconstructing the rupture surface base on the exposed scarps could be a way to solve it,since it forms the exposed part of the rupture surface.Therefore,this research aims to develop a geometric approach for landslide volume estimation using the DEM of the topographic surface after the landslide event,limited field survey data and to reconstruct the surface of rupture and analyze its applicability for different types of landslides.The scarp information and limited data about the depths to rupture surface were incorporated to a paraboloid fitting to generate the most possible rupture surface.The volumes of landslides were calculated by the difference between the reconstructed rupture surface and the pre-or post-event DEM.The proposed method was tested in nine analogue landslides and one real landslide,in both cases,compared with other methods,the proposed method shows an advantage in accurate landslide volume estimation.