What Is Landslides?

780 Words4 Pages

1. NTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
Landslide event is on the increase worldwide the penalties of which can be loss of life, damaging or destroying residential and industrial developments, loss of livestock villages or even entire towns, destroying agricultural and forest land and negatively manipulating the quality of water in rivers and streams. So, Land sliding is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movements. It also describes processes that involve downward and outward movement of earth materials including rocks and soils that result in slope modification. Landslides are naturally occurring phenomena’s involving downslope movement of earth material (rock/soil) on different scales varying from small scale insignificant …show more content…

Landslides are caused by a combination of both natural and human related causes. In rawalakot, Azad Kashmir, it is studied that all mountainous areas are either exposed to or currently facing serious soil erosion because of high rain fall. According to metrological department reports an intense rainfall occurs in rawalakot and in its surroundings during the months of July and august and average rain fall calculated during these two months ranges from 112 to 136mm. Due to these shortcomings mountain disasters such as landslides have had significant impacts but limited mediations exist to minimize it or its effects. Further studies of literature and local people discussions results that the other main cause of many landslides in the study area was human activities which included cultivation, deforestation and terracing of steep slopes. In concerned area geologic factors have also been found to cause mass movements on slopes and these include shallow soils over hard impermeable rocks or glacial till and alternate layers of hard and soft lithology of Murree Formation. A landslide occurs when the average shear stress of the mountain slope material becomes greater than the average shear resistance (Larsen and Torres-Sanchez, 1998). Favorable conditions for slope movement may exist or accumulate for a long period of time without any movement taking place (Scharpe 1938). Yet, the right impulse can develop a number of slides that happen simultaneously or within a short period of time. These are normally referred to as triggering factors. These factors can be divided into external and internal causes. The external causes include earthquake, rainfall, and vibrations from heavy machinery, artificial increase of slope angle and removal of lateral

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