Evolution Mechanism and Rainfall Warning Criteria for Maijianwo Slope in Henan Province, China

In this study, two different research methods are applied to investigate the evolution mechanism and rainfall warning criteria for Maijianwo slope located in Henan Province, China. On the one hand, an indoor-model test is performed under artificial rainfall and based on similarity theory. A set of monitoring system is utilized to track the moisture content, deformation and cracks of critical points of the model during the test. On the other hand, the numerical simulation is carried out to provide an insight into the variation of unstable zone and factor of safety for the landslide with the increasing cumulative rainfall. Results indicate that the evolution process of Maijianwo slope is composed of three stages of initiating, accelerating and failure respectively, and stability of slope decreases gradually as cumulative rainfall increases. Based on the evolution mechanism of retrogressive landslide verified by both model test and numerical simulation, cracking time of critical positions on the slope prior to each stage were set as the initiating time of each stage and the cumulative rainfall associated with each initiating time (E₁ = 75 mm, E₂ = 180 mm) has been defined as the warning criteria for the Maijianwo slope. As the cumulative rainfall in Maijianwo slope reaches 75 and 180 mm, the landslide orange and red warning codes are issued, respectively. Otherwise, the slope is in a safe condition when the cumulative rainfall is less than 75 mm.