Effects of roots cohesion on regional distributed slope stability modelling
Elena Benedetta Masi, Veronica Tofani, Guglielmo Rossi, Sabatino Cuomo, Wei Wu, Diana Salciarini, Enrica Caporali, Filippo Catani
Abstract
We present a regionally distributed slope stability modelling for shallow landslides considering the effect of plant roots. Our modelling is based on the physically-based distributed slope stability model, HIRESSS (HIgh REsolution Slope Stability Simulator). Thanks to the parallel structure, our code is well suited to perform fast assessment of slope stability over large spatial and temporal scales. The reinforcing effect of plant roots is implemented into the code by considering the local plant species and their spatial variations. The probabilistic nature of the stability of slopes is considered by performing Monte Carlo simulations. Our model is applied to two study areas in Italy. The numerical results are compared with the collected data from these areas. The model predictions show that the effect of plant root is sensitive to rainfall intensity and duration. Our model prediction shows only minor influence of plant root on slope stability particularly for the soil conditions near saturation.