Landslide Activation during the Development of Mountainous Areas

Abstract

The development of mountainous areas leads to activation of hazardous exogenic processes, primarily landslides and mudflows. One of the important factors determining the intensity of these processes and having a significant impact on their characteristics is moistening of rocks in potential landslide and mudflow masses. This work considers the case of landslide activation at Gornyi Vozdukh ski resort in December 2021. A predictive model is presented for the formation of landslides induced by excessive moistening of slopes, which was calibrated to the conditions of southern Sakhalin. To calibrate the model, the data on the cases of landslides and mudflows within a 30-km radius from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk hydrometeorological station are collected. The predictive model uses data on daily, antecedent, and cumulative precipitation. All these data are publicly available, which makes it possible to calibrate the model for any nearest hydrometeorological station. The daily precipitation threshold making possible the formation of landslides and mudflows in the given territory is determined as 51.4 mm.