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The July 14, 2003 Qianjiangping landslide, Three Gorges Reservoir, China

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Abstract

The Qianjiangping landslide occurred after the first impoundment of the Three Gorges Reservoir in July 2003. Field investigation revealed that failure occurred when the reservoir reached 135 m, but the stability of the affected slope was already reduced by pre-existing bedding-plane shears, quarrying of mudstone from the landslide toe, and previous heavy rain. A possible explanation of the rapid and long runout mechanism of the landslide is that movement on a bedding-plane shear ruptured the calcite cement and rapidly reduced the sandstone strength to residual shear strength.

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References

  • Wang XF, Chen XH, Zhang RJ (2002) Protection of geological remains in the Yangtze Gorges area, China with the study of the Archean-Mesozoic multiple stratigraphic subdivision and sea-level change. Geological Publishing House, Beijing, 341 pp (in Chinese)

  • Zhang YM, Liu GR, Chang H, Huang BL, Pan W (2004) Tectonic analysis on the Qianjiangping landslide in Three Gorges Reservoir area and a revelation. Journal of Yangtze River (submitted, in Chinese)

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Acknowledgements

The local government of Shazhenxi supplied useful information about the slope deformation and economic losses. Field investigation was partially supported by research grants (No. 15310127, Representative: F.W. Wang) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan (MEXT), and IPL M2002–102 (Representative: T. Matsumoto) from the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). Comments given by Mauri McSaveney were deeply appreciated.

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Correspondence to Fa-Wu Wang.

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Wang, FW., Zhang, YM., Huo, ZT. et al. The July 14, 2003 Qianjiangping landslide, Three Gorges Reservoir, China. Landslides 1, 157–162 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-004-0020-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-004-0020-6

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