Geological and Engineering Analysis of Residual Soil for Forewarning Landslide from Highland Area in Northern Thailand

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Geological and Engineering Analysis of Residual Soil for Forewarning Landslide from Highland Area in Northern Thailand Open Geosci. 2015; 1:637–645 Research Article Open Access Thanakrit Thongkhao, Sumet Phantuwongraj, Montri Choowong*, Thanop Thitimakorn, and Punya Charusiri Geological and engineering analysis of residual soil for forewarning landslide from highland area in northern Thailand DOI 10.1515/geo-2015-0059 Received Jan 14, 2015; accepted Aug 27, 2015 1 Introduction Abstract: One devastating landslide event in northern Landslide is a worldwide natural hazard, which in most Thailand occurred in 2006 at Ban Nong Pla village, Chiang cases, occurs as a debris flow and soil creep. In a tropi- Klang highland of Nan province after, a massive amount cal climate region, landslide is commonly caused by in- of residual soil moved from upstream to downstream, via tense and continuous heavy rainfall [1]. Therefore, a better creek tributaries, into a main stream after five days of un- understanding of landslide processes requires the precise usual heavy rainfall. In this paper, the geological and en- characterisation of the triggering factors and relationship gineering properties of residual soil derived from sedimen- among geological and engineering parameters. The trig- tary rocks were analyzed and integrated. Geological map- gering factors are often time dependent and for this reason ping, electrical resistivity survey and test pits were car- it is complicate to have a quantitative approach without a ried out along three transect lines together with system- permanent in-situ investigation measurement [2]. In most atic collection of undisturbed and disturbed residual soil of the landslide processes, loss of soil equilibrium caused samples. As a result, the average moisture content in soil by heavy rainfall is considered as one of the most impor- is 24.83% with average specific gravity of 2.68, whereas the tant triggering factors. liquid limit is 44.93%, plastic limit is 29.35% and plastic in- Thailand is located in a warm and tropical climate dex is 15.58%. The cohesion of soil ranges between 0.096– region. The tropical monsoons and typhoons from both 1.196 ksc and the angle of internal friction is between 11.51 the Andaman Sea and the South China Sea contribute and 35.78 degrees. This suggests that the toughness prop- to the heavy rain inducing landslide to occur around the erties of soil change when moisture content increases. Re- country. Rainy season starts in June and commonly pro- sults from electrical resistivity survey reveal that soil thick- duces over discharge in the basins locating in the north- nesses above the bedrock along three transects range from ern part of the country. Beside the effect of heavy rain in 2 to 9 m. The soil shear strength reach the rate of high de- the granitic terranes from the north that triggered land- creases in the range of 72 to 95.6% for residual soil from slides, but long and continue heavy rain in southern Thai- shale, siltstone and sandstone, respectively. Strength of land also causes the overbank full discharge leading to soil soil decreases when the moisture content in soil increases. creep in many places [3–5]. The average annual rainfall Shear strength also decreases when the moisture content ranges from 1,000 to 1,500 mm for northern, northeastern changes. Therefore, the natural soil slope in the study area and central parts of the country, whereas at the eastern will be stable when the moisture content in soil level is and southern part of the country, rainfall is between 2,000 equal to one, but when the moisture content between soil to 3,000 mm. Rainfall inducing landslides normally occurs particle increases, strength of soil will decrease resulting in mountainous area due to single intent or long period in soil strength decreasing. of rain. In case of prolonged rainfall, the flood and debris flow commonly follow landslide and cause more damages Keywords: landslide; multi-stage direct shear test; shear to villages along flow passages and on the alluvial plain. strength; Nan; northern Thailand Thanakrit Thongkhao, Sumet Phantuwongraj, Thanop Thiti- *Corresponding Author: Montri Choowong: Department of Geol- makorn, Punya Charusiri: Department of Geology, Faculty of Sci- ogy, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, ence, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand Thailand; Email: [email protected]; [email protected] © 2015 Thanakrit Thongkhao et al., published by De Gruyter Open. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. failure of slope from the highland or steep terrain in northern Thailand is often reported to occur mostly in conjunction with flash flooding from heavy rainfall and in those areas where human activities such as exploitation of land by changing soil slope for agriculture purpose are present. The Ban Nong Pla area is considered to be situated in one of the landslide risk zones. 638 Ë Thanakrit Thongkhao et al. Figure 3. Location of a village and present condition of highland forest and agriculture. Figure 3: Location of a village and present condition of highland forest and agriculture. Figure 1. Digital Elevation Model (DEM) showing the study area (red square) covering the THE METHODOLOGIES Figure 1:northernDigital provinces Elevation of Thailand Model and (DEM)Thai-Laos showing PDR border the (left) study and index area map (red of square)Thailand covering indicating the northernwhere the study provinces area is located of Thailand (black square) and (right). Thai-Laos Satellite image and interpretation PDR border (left) and index map of Thailand indicating where the 2001The at THEOS Wang satellite Chin image district, from Geo-Informatics Phrae and province. Space Technology This Development mega- study area is located (black square) (right). Agency is firstly applied in this study for interpreting and classifying patterns of landslide landslidescars, land-use/land was cover, one type of of the common country’s and unusual worst agricultures, records. and boundary Land- of existing forest. Geographical reference data were digitized with the coordinates either in slide subsequently extended to Phee Pun Num mountain terms of latitude and longitude or columns and rows. Attribute data associate a numerical rangecode to eac coveringh cell or set of Phrae, coordinates Lampang and for each variable, and Sukhothai or to represent actual provinces. values (900 m elevation, 25 degrees slope gradient) or to connote categorical data types (land-uses, Thevegetation number type, landof cover, casualties rock type) [12] has. reached more than 30 peo- After geomorphological map has been created, test pits and shallow excavation along plesthe prospected and caused transects thewere economicconducted. These losses combined of moremethods thanprovide 300 an academic mil- mean of acquiring a very detailed record of the complex soil conditions which often exist lionnear to bahtthe ground [6]. surface. Soon It is after, worth remembering, at Nam Kor-Nam however, that Chun test pits and area, other Lom- outcrops can also be used for in situ testing and to obtain high quality samples. Disturbed and sak district, Phetchabun province, a landslide occurred undisturbed soil samples from these methods were analyzed for both physical and engineering properties. in August 2001, killing 150 people and damaging about 600Two-dimension housesal electrical with total resistivity amount survey of 645 million baht of eco- nomicTwo-dimension loss. Duringal electrical that resistivity time, measurement the amounts has been carried of rainfallsout aiming to distinguish a layer of residual soil from rock basement. Basic modes of operation include the wereprofilingreported (mapping), vertical up to electrical 150 mmsounding [7]. (VES In) May,, combined 2004 sounding at Maeand profiling Ra- mat(two-dimensional district, resistivity Tak province, imaging), and one electrical mega-landslide resistivity tomography determined (ERT). The images which are obtained (apparent resistivity pseudo sections) are processed by inversion the loss of 400 casualties, 2,500 damaged houses, and 500 million baht of economic loss. There were more than 250 mm of rainfall prior to the landslide movement [8]. After these events, interested areas were included in the “landslide hazard map” produced by the Land Develop- ment Department (1:250,000 scale) [10] and associated dis- asters from nine districts of Nan province [11]. This is the main reason why scientists seem to consider the amount of rainfall as the main trigger mechanism for mass move- ment. Notably, all landslide events occur in rainy season. 2 The study area FigureFigure 2. 2:LandLand use a usend land and cover land from cover the study from area, the Nan study highland area,. Ban Nan Nong high- Pla land. Bancommunity Nong consists Pla community of two small consistsvillages. One of is two located small on upper villages. part and One the other is in the lower part of the mountain. The study area lies within a small highland village named is located on upper part and the other is in the lower part of the mountain. Ban Nong Pla that is the center of the study area and is located in a valley with a steep slope (Figure 1). The lo- cation of the village is reported as one of high potential Apart from 2006 Nanlandslide, other well-known landslide risk areas in Nan province [9]. The area is sur- landslide events in northern Thailand, in the past decades, rounded by mountains with elevation ranging from 700 has been recorded. One of these events occurred on 4 May software. The multi-electrode resistivity technique consist a multi-core cable with as many conductors (24, 48, 72, 96 and so on) as electrodes plugged into the ground at a fixed spacing, every 5 m. Three resistivity lines were carried out in this study including BNP-1, BNP-2, and BNP-3 in the upper and lower slopes of a village (Figure 4). Measurement of soil shear strength The shear strength of soil mass is an internal resistance per unit area.
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